If You Should Leave Before Me

“It’s about the ritual,” Joshua (John Wilcox) tells his husband Mark (Shane P Allen). He’s referring to coffee making – something that Mark views as a sacrosanct pursuit – but it gives a steer to a film that is, on an emotional level at least, all about processing. The back and forth over coffee-making neatly clues us into the relationship, with Mark the more particular of the two, Joshua the more flamboyant. And if it seems slightly odd that Mark has enough different types of coffee to run a small store or that the pair are casually talking about a crazy cat lady “whose cats ate her”, things are about to get a whole lot more weird.

A little patience and trust on the part of the viewer is required as writing/directing brothers J Markus and Boyd Anderson soon take a Michel Gondry-style left turn as the men have a series of strange encounters with characters behind doors which appear in weird spots in the home – heralded by a triple-knock. It’s not a spoiler to say they see dead people, but it’s their interactions with them that hold the key to the film’s emotional core concerning how we process grief and personal baggage.

Each of these hidden worlds is imaginatively created, from the cardboard Narnia, appropriately entered from the back of a wardrobe and which features a soulful supporting turn from Merrick McCartha as a man recalling lost love, to a comedic interlude focusing on a catfishing victim (Susan Louise O’Connor). All the while, the directors probe at the central tension between Joshua and Mark as details of exactly what is going on are gradually revealed.

The Andersons – whose film premiered at Raindance Film Festival – embrace theatricality in a way that works for them in these imagined realms. Everyone there, in a way, is performing and the playful approach serves the film well and means that the pair are able to employ practical effects with style. The art direction from Ava Decapri and Nico Pliskin is uniformly excellent, if they can achieve this on what was doubtless a rock bottom budget people should let them loose with more cash in future. The cinematography from Daniel Watt is notable for the different feel he creates in each environment, although the deliberately noticeable handheld movements in Joshua and Mark’s home are sometimes distracting, as is the occasionally intrusive score from Troy Higgins when a moment of emotion would be better served by silence.

The growing poignancy is balanced by an impressive amount of humour, not least when Mark and Joshua end up with a Nazi (Tommy Noga) living in what amounts to a granny flat behind their sofa in the run-up to Christmas. The general high octave performances are also anchored by Allen’s beautifully understated turn. With first-time features the trick is often knowing when to stop – undoubtedly hard when you don’t know when you’ll have an opportunity to make another film – and at two hours, this is on the indulgent side, and could lose an episode or two with no ill effects. The dialogue, similarly, is on the nose in places, which is a particular shame given that the filmmakers put their faith in the audience early on only to start to worry that we might not have got it.

In an ocean of bland indie films, this stands out for its ambitious approach to material that for all its invention, still delivers a heartfelt message.

Reviewed on: 06 Sep 2025