Life Itself

Hoop Dreams director Steve James creates a portrait of influential Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert. Officially an adaptation of Ebert's bestselling memoir of the same name, the documentary uses Ebert's valiant struggle with cancer as a structural device to examine his many career accomplishments. As a series of flashbacks take us through Ebert's colorful life and times, James periodically returns to his subject's traumatic last days in the hospital, where his wife Chaz and other loved ones prepare to say their last goodbyes. The result is a reverent meditation on the life and death of the writer whose passion for film was evident in every review he penned, but whose love of life taught his loyal readers to treasure every moment.