The Event is a 2003 drama film directed by Thom Fitzgerald. Matt Shapiro (Don McKellar), a cellist with AIDS, has died in Manhattan after a party, and his partner Brian (Brent Carver) is suspected of having assisted suicides of Matt and other AIDS patients. Assistant District Attorney Nick DeVivo (Parker Posey) interviews Matt's friends and family who attended to piece together a portrait of the final two years of Matt's life, which are told in flashbacks.
The ultra-low-budget film stars an ensemble of respected actors including Olympia Dukakis, Sarah Polley, Dick Latessa, Joanna P. Adler, Jane Leeves, Rejean Cournoyer, Joan Orenstein, McKellar, Posey, and Carver. Written by Steven Hillyer and Tim Marback with director Fitzgerald, it was produced by Bryan Hofbauer, Vicki McCarty (exec), Robert Flutie (exec). ThinkFilm distributed the film in the U.S.
The Event premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received three standing ovations; the critical reception did not match this level of enthusiasm. Critics praised the actors' performancesâÂÂespecially that of Dukakis as Matt's mother, LilaâÂÂbut criticized the film for its heavy-handed treatment of the nuances in assisted suicide. Scott Foundas of IndieWire expressed disappointment that instead of an "acidly comic take on death and its aftermath", The Event was "unrelentingly unpleasant, impossibly maudlin...pedantic, preachy...of noble intent, but with little genuine feeling". Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden criticized the "far too schematic" screenplay for flattening the ethical dilemmas of assisted suicide. Concurring, Exclaim! Allan Tong added that the film failed to induce sympathy for Matt: "there's a lot of talk about Matt's excruciating treatments, but we see very little of them". In contrast, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised various aspects of the film, from the acting to the direction and writing, and highlighted how it "celebrates, of all things, mother love, an enduring staple of foreign cinema but rarely touched upon so effectively in English-language films".