Don’t Let Depression Dull Your Life!

I saw two films a couple of weeks apart in 2025 that show contrasting approaches to life, one fully engaged, and the other spent avoiding connection, perhaps out of underlying depression. First was “Come See Me in the Good Light,” a documentary film about poet Andrea Gibson, then “Jay Kelly,” about the life of a fictional movie star played by George Clooney.

Spoiler alert: you may want to see both movies before reading this post.

To live?

Andrea Gibson was a poet who grabbed life with both hands. Gibson wanted to live as fully as possible, but that life was tragically cut short by ovarian cancer at age 49. As Gibson says in the documentary:

At first I thought it was a stomach bug, but when it started feeling like a stomach anaconda, my doctor convinced me to get a CAT scan. “This is the beginning of a nightmare,” I thought. But stay with me, y’all, because my story is one about happiness being easier to find once we realize we do not have forever to find it.

The documentary came about through the efforts of many of Gibson’s friends, including comedian Tig Notaro and singer/songwriters Brandi Carlile and Sara Bareilles, as well as Gibson’s wife, poet Megan Falley. Their aim was to preserve the inspiring, tragic, funny, and courageous way Gibson dealt with life, illness, love, friends, and eventual end of life.

One of Gibson’s poems contains the lines “Do you know how to run for your life and not against it? The key is to never warm up to the idea of a promised future. No one can do that [focus solely on the future] without giving today the cold shoulder.” That immediacy is a through-line of this beautiful film.

Or to just pretend?

Two weeks later I watched “Jay Kelly,” a movie that takes a Sylvia Plath quote as its epigraph: “It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all.”

This film is about an actor whose narrow focus on stardom leaves no room for relationships, including with spouses, lovers, his children, and his paid entourage. At one point he is on a train speeding through Italy and is flashing his famous megawatt smile, very obviously waiting to be recognized by his fellow travelers. When the recognition comes, he goes into his lifetime role: playing “movie star.”

We learn that he wasn’t the most talented student in his acting class. That was Timothy, a character played by Billy Crudup. Jay went on an audition with Timothy at the request of Timothy’s girlfriend, who thought that Jay could help calm Timothy’s audition nerves.

When Timothy “choked” at the audition because of his nerves, Jay asked the casting agents if he could read for the same part. When they agreed, he did all of the things he had heard Timothy do when practicing for the audition, basically stealing his friend’s creative “take” on the role, and later his friend’s girlfriend.

The part became his breakout role.

Living large, or existing large?

Jay has no idea how to be authentic, to have an authentic experience with another person. He’s so self-involved in his quest to charm the world and to be idolized, that he fails every test of empathy for those around him. He’s all style and no substance. He doesn’t know how to make a life without applause. He pretends at living. He keeps looking for the next “shiny” thing, whether a woman to date, a new role, an award.

The shiny things of the moment are all external things that he thinks will bring him pleasure in the future, but they fail. Why? Because they are attempts to cure an internal problem with an external solution.

At the beginning of the film, he’s on a movie set playing a man who’s dying, and when the director shouts “cut,” Jay says he’d like another take, which he also says at the end of the film, referring to his life when receiving a lifetime achievement award without any friends or family there. Basically, he’s saying he’d like another shot at life. But we don’t get the sense that he’s learned anything about himself and how to make a satisfying real life. As he says at one point, “All my memories are movies.” He hasn’t really lived; he’s only acted.

Applause, or connection to others?

Despite the shortness of Gibson’s life, in contrast to character Jay Kelly who looks back on his life with regret, Gibson seems to hold only gratitude. Andrea Gibson lived an authentic life filled with meaningful relationships that enriched her too-short life and sustained her through the most trying of times. Jay Kelly lived a life that was all about audience applause and didn’t make time for relationships and real love, whether with his daughters, wives, or friends.

If you’d like to live a more authentic and connected life, let’s explore together what gets in the way of your satisfaction and pleasure, so you can learn to feel good from the inside out! What often gets in the way is the emptiness and sense of hollowness that can come from depression. Read about depression treatment, and contact me. I’m here to help.