The documentary starts by Gareth making the news of him being HIV positive in a video to publicly announce it. Not sure if awareness was the motivation, but the idea for him is to change perceptions about HIV by raising awareness & fighting prejudice. He re-educates himself and the audience through interviews with doctors and other health workers that these days HIV is nothing to be afraid of and people can live almost as normal a life as anyone else. In fact, if he continues to take his medicines, it is unlikely that he will spread or pass on the virus. We see him doing out to a few of his very close friends and family. Most importantly he decides that he will participate in the Iron Man race, just so that he can show the world that people living with HIV are enough less than anyone else. Modern medicine may have made the virus treatable and non-transmittable, but old ideas about HIV still persist and Gareth is on a mission to smash the stereotypes and show that 'he has HIV and it’s OK'.
As much as I understand how important and relevant this documentary is, I just felt that some bits of it were maybe more for himself than for audience. The film came in 2019 and I think for almost a decade and a half people are very well aware that HIV is no longer associated with death and AIDS like it used to be. Advancements in medicine have been fantastic and the fact that he reacts as if he is hearing things for the first time just feel very scripted to me. I do understand that maybe nature of this is to educate audience and that is ok, but there was absolutely no need to make it a sob story. In fact, the important bits of the story are when he comes out to his close friend sand family and how he prepares and finishes the Iron Man race. What would have been nicer would be to have heard from his partner of many years, who is not positive, about how he perceives all this and how his life has changed, if at all. A recent hour long documentary nonetheless. (5/10)
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