75
Ultimately, while Gleason can be tough to watch, it has a strong message about the value of relationships and how to spend a life doing meaningful work against great odds.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
63
It has an irritating habit of depending on our natural reactions, letting the subject matter do the heavy lifting.
75
While fairly straightforward in its attempts to galvanize viewers around efforts to combat the disease, Gleason hits those familiar marks with superb aim.
100
Tweel masterfully assembles roughly four years of footage, much of it shot by Gleason himself, and the result is painfully raw at times but undeniably rewarding.
100
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Gleason is so powerful in its cumulative effect that it should be accompanied by a consumer advisory — something along the lines of “This documentary may cause sudden alterations of mood and attitude.”
80
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Focused much more intently on video journals Gleason made as his illness progressed, the film both documents his rapid physical decline and ponders the many existential issues it raises — especially for a married couple expecting their first child in a few months.
75
He can afford the best treatments and technologies and — by the end — even to extend his life, because he’s a well-off former NFL player. Most patients don’t have these luxuries.
74
Clay Tweel’s Gleason documents the agony and the ecstasy of its subject’s life, and is similarly exceptional in its avoidance of the cliches so common among inspiring documentaries.
100
New Orleans Times-Picayune by Mike Scott
The deeply resonant Gleason isn't a football movie. Rather, it traffics in universal themes that effectively drill down to the very core of the human condition. As such, everybody has something to gain from what ends up being a multilayered mediation on life.