For Dear Life (2017)

Approximately two years in the life of theater producer James Pollard is presented. The genesis of this documentary is shown to be an agreement between James and his filmmaker cousin, Carmen Pollard, to document the final years of his life in an effort to find some meaning to his diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer a few years earlier while he was in his mid-forties. The diagnosis came at a difficult time in his life, it which followed the break-up of his first marriage to Barbara Pollard. The film delves into the effect of James' health and medical condition most specifically on three people in his life, his and Barbara's two twenty-something children, Emma Pollard and Desmond Pollard, and James' fiancée, Hayley Broker. James and Hayley entered into their relationship knowing full well of the diagnosis, with Hayley, a physician, having insight into the medical issues behind the diagnosis while being cognizant that she is not part of his medical team. The film largely focuses on how James deals with what he knows is the near end of his life. He wants those in his life to be engaged in the process if they indeed want to be involved. But he also ends up treating his life much like he would one of his theater productions, with the final act, his post-life, he hoping will be a successful ten thousand year experiment.