Dr. Edith “Edie” Widder isn’t exactly comfortable in front of the camera, preferring to offer plain-spoken voiceover instead or, even better, just letting the stunning images of her life’s work do the talking. But as we see throughout Tasha Van Zandt’s refreshingly unflashy documentary “A Life Illuminated,” about the pioneering oceanographer and bioluminescence obsessive, the sea geek has spent years pushing past that. After all, she’s got way too much to say. And that compulsion — a genuine, profound desire to share her findings with the world — makes for a classic, stick-to-your ribs documentary experience about a fascinating person.
Related Stories
Van Zandt (“After Antarctica”) wisely uses traditional storytelling lanes to tell Dr. Widder’s story, tracing a pair of intertwining narratives over the course of the film‘s snappy running time of 89 minutes. At the forefront: Dr. Widder’s biggest swing yet, as she readies for a deep-sea dive in which she’ll test brand-new technology in hopes of documenting a bioluminescent phenomenon she’s long been obsessed with. Weaved in alongside that: an unfortunately light exploration of her biography, tracing her through childhood and many professional milestones (deeper explorations into her personal life are not on offer).
Dr. Widder’s plain-spoken nature isn’t inherently cinematic, but it’s so credible and trustworthy that it makes for a smart fit for the material. Consider early on, when she notes that it’s important for people to have role models to look up to, and that she was lucky enough to have a big one in her mom: Both her parents were mathematicians. Dr. Widder would never ask someone to look up to her, but her honest nature (and major accomplishments) naturally engender just that.
But Dr. Widder’s pragmatism has another side, and when she lights up (ha) while talking about bioluminescence, the effect is contagious. Early in her career, when Dr. Widder first became entranced by the chemical reactions that would frame all of her scientific journeys, she tells us she got teased a bit by her colleagues (many of them, of course, men) for comparing seeing scads of sea creatures lighting up underwater to “the Fourth of July.” The real problem, of course, was making other people see that, literally.
Early oceanographic technology was quite primitive — many of Dr. Widder’s first expeditions involved simply trawling the ocean with giant nets, hoping to catch dead or dying sea creatures to study, an experience that has also made humane capture of utmost importance to her. Actually showing people what she saw beneath the waves, therefore, long felt impossible. How do you show the full spectrum (again, ha) of what you see under the sea when all that’s available to you are giant nets and, if you’re really lucky, black and white still photography unable to show actual colors?
Other people might have gotten frustrated. Dr. Widder got to work. Over the course of her career, Dr. Widder went on hundreds of submersible dives, developed her own camera systems to capture marine life in all its glory, and became obsessed with photographing “flashback,” in which sea creatures “flash” their bioluminescence back at another light (even if human-operated).
Mostly, showing flashback to others might help sell what’s most important to Dr. Widder: that the ocean is so vast, so unknown, and so magical, it deserves to be studied far more. The world deserves it, its people deserve it.
Because of Dr. Widder’s longtime renown, Van Zandt has been gifted with all kinds of wonderful archival footage, and we’re able to see technology improve in both of the film’s timelines (including a heartbreaking sequence that follows a different doc appearance by Dr. Widder that ended up following the failure of another key dive, no wonder she’s a little shy on camera).
What Van Zandt and cinematographer Sebastian Zeck show is, much like Dr. Widder herself, extremely impressive and not at all showy. In following Dr. Widder’s journey, we learn how much even a single good shot of bioluminescent activity is valued. By the time the film ends, we are treated to the whole fireworks display. Illuminating, absolutely.
Grade: B
“A Life Illuminated” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Want to stay up to date on IndieWire’s film reviews and critical thoughts? Subscribe here to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers.
