'Winter Hymns' is a life-affirming movie about death
Wisconsin-made drama looks at a doctor and her terminally ill patients
How can I convince you to go see a 156-minute movie that takes place in one location, that location being a doctor’s office where one patient after another is dealing with a terminal diagnosis?
Maybe you don’t need to be convinced. Writer-director Nathan Deming’s “Winter Hymns” was the breakout hit of the Wisconsin Film Festival, and weeks afterward, Flix Brewhouse Madison keeps adding screenings as word of mouth spreads. (It’s now playing through May 13 at Flix, as well as in several other Wisconsin cities.)
“Winter Hymns” is very sad, but I didn’t find it depressing at all. On the contrary, I found watching it to be an emotionally activating, even cleansing experience.
The theater I saw the film at on Thursday night was packed, and maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. Every person in that theater will be in a version of that doctor’s office at some point, facing the inevitable end of the road. Some may already have with their loved ones.
Movie theaters are a place where strangers share a collective human experience, and what experience is more universal than death? After the movie was over, the woman next to me said she found the film “depressing.” “Winter Hymns” is very sad, but I didn’t find it depressing at all. On the contrary, I found watching it to be an emotionally activating, even cleansing experience.
Deming has said in interviews that he was inspired to make the film by his father’s own experiences as a palliative doctor, and the film follows one long day in the life of Dr. Linda Voberink (American Players Theatre core member Colleen Madden) as she sees a series of patients. Some are old, some are young. Some have cancer, some have dementia. Some are angry, some are philosophical.
But all are facing down the end of their life’s journey, and have come to Dr. Voberink for what she calls “care without a cure.” Painkillers are prescribed, forms are signed, but the heart of the sessions is giving the patients some space to talk about how they’re feeling, and for someone to listen to them.
A retired teacher (recently retired APT actor Sarah Day) enthuses about the students she hopefully inspired. A priest (Chike Johnson) wrestles with crippling headaches and newfound doubts about his faith. A daughter (Ericka Kreutz) rages in frustration at trying to care for her mother (Flora Coker), whose dementia is revealing a cruel side.
They say great actors know how to listen, and Madden does a lot of listening in “Winter Hymns” as the patients tell their stories. She plays the doctor with compassion but also professional restraint, knowing her patients need a guide, not a griever. When a couple of patients slip past Dr. Vobernik’s emotional defenses, Madden lets you feel it without overplaying the moments.
Some of Deming’s longer monologues tip a little into feeling theatrical, but the performances always keep the scenes as real and honest as possible. While the cast is full of APT vets and other great Wisconsin stage actors, the one that really leaves a mark is first-time actor Thaddeus Sykora, playing a young lineman facing advanced stomach cancer with unadorned sincerity and simplicity.
I felt so present watching these scenes that I didn’t feel the film’s length. It’s not that it moves fast. It’s that it doesn’t move at all, and that exquisite stillness dislocates the viewer from the feeling of time passing.
“Winter Hymns” may cut a little too close to the bone for someone who is facing a terminal illness themselves, or grieving loved ones who have had conversations just like these. It left me feeling freshly and acutely aware of the preciousness of life and the fortune of good health. And grateful to the healers who have the difficult, necessary conversations with us when it’s time.
“Winter Hymns” is playing at Flix Brewhouse Madison through May 13.