Last Flight Home

This is quite a touching, if very intrusive, look at the final weeks of former entrepreneur Eli Timoner. Being the victim of a freak stroke during a routine massage, his career was quite literally stopped in it's tracks as he, and his wife and three children, had to adapt to his increasingly disabling mobility issues and to the concomitant financial consequences of his inability to work. Now, at the age of 92, this lucid and engaging individual has had enough and so wishes to avail himself of his right to a medically assisted death. The political aspects of this documentary illustrate well the trauma the man himself and the family are put through as the regulations require clinical evaluation and for him to physically administer the doses himself - one heck of task for this frail gent. Doubtless this thread of the film will elicit a great many views on the right to die, and taken objectively this has valid comment to make that clearly contributes to that debate. Sadly, though, as we begin to follow the final days of his life - on an almost day-by-day basis - I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Not with the topic, but with the intimacy of the filming that was, essentially, none of my business. Daughter Ondi, who was behind virtually every aspect of this production, seems intent on sharing the most private moments of this rather emotionally charged environment. Her style of story-telling is supremely self-indulgent, and her attitude to her mother (who comes across as less enthusiastic participating in this audio-visual farewell to her husband of a great many years) really annoyed me. Indeed, as the documentary concluded I found the whole thing became less and less appropriate for general viewing. An ideal video-eulogy for the family, certainly, but for ordinary cinema goers it just felt that I was trespassing on their familial ordeal and, ultimately, grief. Perhaps my attitude is tainted by my own beliefs regarding euthanasia, but this film quickly stops being about that and develops into something I found became far more about the daughter than the issue at hand.

I am extremely moved by the family's bravery and willingness to welcome us into their home at a most difficult and vulnerable time in their life. We watched it as a family and the conversation continued and still continues. It was truly thought provoking! This documentary has triggered us to dig deep and reflect on our personal meaning of life, death, love and dignity.

It is a conversation everyone will need to have and this movie has encouraged us not to be afraid to talk about it. Thank you to Eli and his entire family for sharing their experience with the world.

Last Flight Home takes the viewer into the deep questions that humans have the ability to ask now. It is a very intimate movie an will tap into the viewers own experience with life and their families. It requires the viewer to ask themselves a question they may have the privilege to ignore until watching. It is powerful and doesn't provide an answer for everyone, but shows a family struggling to find the answer for them.

"Last Flight Home" is a deeply moving film that is destined to start conversations between people and families and will shift the debate around right to die laws in the United States and the world. Timoner invites you into her family, a sprawling tribe of creatives and personalities, and through impeccable technique using personal archival video and images allows you as the viewer to see her father as they see him, as the "good man" he always strived to be. As her father battles his inner demons talking with Ondi and his daughter/rabbi, the viewer is asked to reflect on what it means to life a life worth living. What makes a "good life"? This simple film asks the deepest questions and is a moving portrait of a individual and a family coming to grips with loss by injecting a man's last hours with buckets of joy. Don't miss this film. Share it with your friends and family and see where the experience takes you.

"Last Flight Home" is a very moving experience. It illustrates perfectly the right to die debate. Although everyone agrees that people have the right to live life as they choose it, there is no agreement on the right to choose how to end one's life. Where the law allows it, all these rules and procedures are put in place. This movie illustrates the affect these 'safeguards' have on the people involved. It leaves you thinking long after the credits roll.....