The Final Act

With growing access to medically assisted dying in jurisdictions worldwide, many of us are facing the kind of moral and ethical questions we may prefer to avoid lest they challenge us too deeply. And however we may answer those questions, there’s no denying the choices that we or our loved ones make about how to depart the world of the living carry profound weight. 

In her extraordinary new documentary, filmmaker Sophie Deraspe approaches the subject with grace and sensitivity. Part of what makes The Final Act so remarkable is the balance that the director — whose films Antigone (TIFF ’19) and Shepherds (TIFF ’24) both won the Festival’s Best Canadian Feature prize — strikes between the film’s two carefully integrated components. 

The first is a philosophical enquiry into humankind’s attitudes toward death and dying, with invaluable contributions by big thinkers like American social psychologist Sheldon Solomon. In the second, Deraspe’s film brings viewers into the lives and final moments of a variety of subjects who have decided to undertake medically assisted death. 

Achieving an uncommon degree of intimacy while maintaining all the respect and reverence such moments deserve, Deraspe creates a space for contemplation. Yet for all the weight that The Final Act itself possesses, the film is suffused with great warmth, beauty, love, and lightness, too. 

JASON ANDERSON

Content advisory: mature themes