World of Facts (2018)

After an accident no one could have expected, Maureen (Gretchen Akers) must return to her hometown so that her partner, Ted (Alex Stein), can receive medical care under the supervision of his family. Meanwhile, a long-term illness forces Maureen and her father, Peter (Bryan Saner), into mirrored positions of caretaker, watching over an unconscious spouse in differing degrees of comfort and confidence. Borrowing its name from a passage in Paul Auster's memoir about his father's death-"I have entered the world of facts, the realm of brute particulars"-the film focuses its attention on the closely observed details of the everyday, which pervade the time-out-of-time experience of modern mourning and of grieving for things yet to come. World of Facts explores the inherent tension between hyper-intimacy and minimalist observation, and manufactures through formal means the experience of its characters. Like peering at a photograph of a crooked picture frame, like sitting bedside to a lover who you are powerless to rouse, the film explores both the vulnerability and strength of a family's most profound, yet most common, experience.