Cancer. It’s a horrible word that can have a mountainous effect on those forced to fight it. And while only one person is directly affected, the horrid disease has a rippling effect on all those around them. In Chris Kelly’s Other People, he takes special aim at that, showing the life cycle of the disease as it begins to take a toll on a loving wife and mother, seen through the eyes of her son.
Set amidst the beauty of Sacramento, Other People sets the tone early by opening with a heart wrenching family moment, backed by a horribly timed voicemail. The strong mix of tears and laughter allows the audience to fully understand what they are getting themselves into as Kelly works hard to provide an honest, authentic look at a stressed family that must deal and live with the news.
Jesse Plemons stars as David, a gay television writer who moves back from New York City to assist in the caring of his mother (played by Molly Shannon). It is through his eyes that we witness the slow deterioration of Joanne as she works hard to bring positivity to the situation, even during her most dire days.
But David is dealing with much more than his family knows. Fearful of adding stress to his already fragile mom, he opts to keep his recent breakup a secret, somewhat prompted by the fact that his father has yet to acknowledge his sexuality. Add in that his recent television script didn’t get picked up to series and this once budding young star is struggling to understand just where everything went wrong.
Kelly, in an effort to keep things pure, never allows Other People to be a film about cancer. Instead he opts to focus on David as he works through a quarter-life crisis, trying to discover the man he wishes to be. Through conversations with a close high school friend and a few awkward online dating encounters, we see a rarely displayed humane look at a gay man, stripped of ruthless stereotypes and clichés, as he navigates his way into adulthood.
As the months pass by, and the visual effects of a fight against cancer begin to wear heavy on Joanne and her family, it is hard to deny the emotional pull that Kelly is able to have on his viewers. From a traumatic scene with the ‘burger guy’ in conjunction with burial decisions to a joyous trip to NYC to see David preform in his improv troupe, the film has its ups and downs, a metaphor for what has become Joanne’s life. But no matter how great things get, there is no denying the elephant in the room as David’s father continues to show a disinterest in his personal life, a troubling situation during the later stages of the film, as the inevitable becomes clear.
Kelly, for the most part, keeps things light. Working hard to parallel real life, he uses heartbreak and frustration to stem laughter, allowing situations to come about organically by keeping things at an even temperament. The film proves a fairly intense character study of someone who is often lost in the shuffle during these life altering stories - the supporters. It’s nice that their story gets told - even if the ending isn’t quite what we had all hoped.
