The death of his son causes McElwee, an autobiographical filmmaker, to look back on his life’s work.
He eventually turns to his archive of home movies — an afternoon trapping crayfish with his son Adrian, age 4; helping with homework, age 11; discussing career plans with his son, age 24. To what extent did his camera affect their relationship when Adrian was alive? To what extent does it define that relationship now that he is gone?
Meanwhile, an effort to adapt McElwee’s first feature, Sherman’s March, into a work of fiction lurches along, giving the filmmaker another perspective from which to meditate on movie making and mortality.