'Gleason' A Review

Gleason is a documentary about Steve Gleason former New Orleans Saints safety who was diagnosed with ALS in 2011. The film shows Steve shortly after he gets his diagnosis and finds out his wife Michel is pregnant with their first child. As time passes Steve and Michel grapple with the degenerative nature of the illness as well as the challenges of parenting.

The film is incredibly moving and emotionally raw. We get an unvarnished look not only at the nature of the disease but at the emotional and mental toll that goes along with it. Both Steve and Michel are worn down not only dealing with the repercussions of ALS but with being parents of a new born. As Steve's condition worsens and his mobility decreases to almost nothing much of the care taking for Rivers, their child, and Steve himself falls to Michel.

More than a story about ALS the film examines the human condition at both its most hopeful and most desperate. Unflinching  moments of pain, heartbreak, and perseverance where you almost wish the camera would cut away in order to give we, the audience, some relief but it does not. It lingers on the triumphs and the defeats of the family. It shows scenes of both physical(an at-home enema) and mental(an evangelical faith healing) discomfort. So intimate is the experience it is at points overwhelming. But more palpable than the tragedy is the family's(and the community they create) ability to carry on, to laugh, to find the joy and keep going.

Powerful, brutal, and tenacious. Not for the faint of heart.

See It.