It's the intent of this moving film to capture something that for obvious reasons is rarely attempted in memoir or movie, i.e., the experience of the deadly disease from the perspective of the sufferer rather than the caregivers.

The subject matter may be tough, and the end-point inevitable, but the message we take away is defiant and ultimately uplifting.

Writer-directors Glatzer and Westmoreland have written a rich, multi-layered screenplay that works equally well as family melodrama and as a meditation on language, identity and mortality.

The balance of heartbreak and hope for everyone is extremely compelling.