‘Last Flight Home’: Sundance Review

Dir/Scr: Ondi Timoner. US. 2022. 107mins

Anyone with an elderly parent faces tough choices on what to do for the best. Ondi Timoner’s deeply personal, immensely moving Last Flight Home strikes an instant chord as she documents her ailing father’s desire to end his life. A loving portrait of her father and the family who supports him takes a real emotional hold and seems guaranteed to provoke discussions on what constitutes a good death and who gets to decide. 

Unflinching, but is very much a film of love and understanding 

Francois Ozon’s recent Everything Went Fine (Tout C’Est Bien Passe) proved how difficult it is to make a box-office impact with similar material. There is no denying that Last Flight Home will be a tough sell, but streamers and documentary channels should welcome the sensitive handling of heartrending material. A two-time winner of the Sundance US Documentary Grand Jury Prize for Dig! (2004) and We Live In Public (2009), Timoner’s skill lies in the way she avoids making her family history feel voyeuristic or uncomfortable. This is is unflinching, but is very much a film of love and understanding 

Timoner’s father Eli is 92 years old. He is physically frail and it is no longer safe for him to be at home with his wife Lisa but he is still very much himself; cogent, sharp-witted and funny. His vivid description of what he would like to see happen to Donald Trump proves that he has all his faculties. That alone makes it hard to deny his request to end his life in a manner that is legally possible in California. “I just want to be underground, “ he says with firm conviction. Indeed, the strength of Eli’s personality shines throughout the film. He has chosen to end his life in a humane and dignified manner and now his family must reconcile themselves to that and to making the best of the time left.

The film is balanced between the practicalities of what happens next and the impact on individual family members. Over 15 days, doctors must assess Eli’s ability to choose for himself and provide information on the medication supplied to slow his heart and bring about his death. The law is very specific that family members can prepare the medications, but cannot administer them.

Timoner wisely understands that in order to become totally involved in Eli’s decision, we need to see who he was and not just who he is now. Archive footage, home movies and family testimony reveal the bigger picture of a man who built Air Florida, creating one of the early success stories of budget airlines. There are photos of him with politicians, including his old friend Jo Biden. He experienced both triumph and disaster, declaring bankruptcy at one point and suffering an accidental stroke that left him paralysed from the age of 53. The one constant through these travails is his decency as a human being and love for his family.

There is a great deal of love in the room for Eli in the living area of the family home where he now resides propped up in bed. Timoner keeps her camera on Eli and that bed as he is visited by those closest to him. As the fifteen days tick down to the moment he will die, the film is filled with tearful farewells on Zoom to old friends and colleagues. There is the opportunity for his children Ondi, David and rabbi Rachel to make sure that nothing is left unsaid as Eli sips a little red wine, eats some pastrami and keeps spirits buoyant.  Eli is such an orderly man that he even advises on household bills and all the little matters he wants to settle before his departure. He is also very secure in his belief that he is heading to a better place.

Eli has given himself the luxury of certainty. He is prepared, he has said his farewells and is surrounded by his family. It is a death that many would envy. Inevitably upsetting, there is also something comforting about Last Flight Home and something admirable about Eli. He seems a remarkable man – but perhaps one of the lessons of the film is that everyone is remarkable to the people who love them.