Farewell to Hollywood
by Christie Robb
In Farewell to Hollywood, documentary filmmaker Henry Corra presents us with the last two years in the life of co-director Regina Nicholson, a young woman struggling against osteosarcoma for the second time.
The movie is troubling. And not just because of the cancer.
Originally diagnosed just after her sixteenth birthday, Regina “Reggie”was an aspiring filmmaker that met the much older Henry at a film festival. Her life’s goal was to make a full-length feature. She sets out to do this with Henry, but early into the project her cancer returns.
The resulting film is an arty home movie of the end of Reggie’s life.
In the film, Reggie’s family initially seems to welcome Henry, excited that he’s taking an interest in their daughter’s dreams. But, as the cancer becomes more aggressive, relations between the grown-ups becomes strained. Reggie’s parents tell Henry to back off. Attached to the point of obsession, Henry presses on Reggie to give him more of her time. Her parents threaten to cut off Reggie’s medical insurance and Henry finds her a home in South Pasadena, taking over as her medical caretaker.
To what extent does Henry exacerbate the family drama? To what extent does he provide essential support?
Because the narrative is given to us through Henry’s editing, it’s difficult to say whether Henry has crossed the line into Perv Town. (There are moments that provoke a major sense of unease.) Or whether Reggie’s parents are smothering and emotionally manipulative to the point of denying her the chance to live in the limited time she has left. Or both.
There’s little input Reggie seems to have on the film. At no point does she clearly turn the camera on Henry. Her chops as a filmmaker are glossed over. We see her bedroom, her stacks of DVDs, her walls plastered with movie posters. We see scenes from her favorite movies, but despite her co-authorship credit, she comes across as more subject than author.
But as a subject, what we do see is a driven, resilient young woman following her dream, joking her way through medical procedures while dealing with excruciating pain and needy adults—interspersed with lots of clips from Pulp Fiction.
In the end, Reggie shares her death beautifully and it was a privilege to know that for 19 brief years she was a part of this world.
