DVD Review: Much Ado About Dying

 British documentary Much Ado About Dying by filmmaker Simon Chambers, 84 min. available as a DVD from First Run Features.

Great Britain's healthcare system is often praised as one of the world's best, but its failure to properly care for the elderly may be the biggest takeaway from the 2023 British documentary Much Ado About Dying by British filmmaker Simon Chambers. He spent more than four years reluctantly providing much of his uncle's end-of-life care, navigating his family's personal dramas and his country's public healthcare system that promises much but delivers little.

Chambers is in India, filming a documentary that goes unfinished, when his uncle demands he come back to London and take care of him, because the uncle, a former actor and teacher, refuses any help from Chambers' sisters, even though they're the family members living in London. Both men are gay but that is incidental to the narrative. So begins a film that starts a number of potential plotlines but rarely develops any, while the grouchy bull-headed uncle complains and argues his final years away. 

At least twice Britain's much-touted publicly funded healthcare system fails. A public-health nurse comes by for about a week and then disappears, never returns, is never replaced. Later, after the uncle is briefly hospitalized, the hospital promises to send a follow-up healthcare team--which never shows up despite repeated phone calls.

At some point the old man--who exhibits features consistent with hoarding--consents to have a friendly Polish-immigrant couple move in. They bring some order, and some joy, and that arrangement works for a while, but when circumstances change, it's no longer viable. One of Chambers' sisters steps up and gets the old uncle into a good rest home that specializes in caring for retired actors. Despite the old man's maddening eccentricities, he's at peace with the arrangement--but the cost, even in a country with a nationalized healthcare system, runs 1,000 British pounds per week. 

Such realities, similiar to what many families outside Britain face, are what make Much Ado About Dying a film worth seeing, especially for anyone facing the challenges of elder care, despite the fact that for much of the film's running time, we have to put up with the old man's complaining and arguing. We have to put up with it for 84 minutes. Imagine what putting up with it for several years would be like.

For more info:  firstrunfeatures.com