It's extremely well written. That's what really hit me first of all. Emil Sher has avoided all the traps of high melodrama and false sentimentality...He shows, in fact, all possible attitudes and he avoids preaching very, very well...[He] does not allow us to get too caught up in the tragedy of the event, first of all. He does this by introducing the third character, a family friend called Keith, a young man who's handicapped. Keith here is a refreshingly frank and ironic presence, almost a subversive presence...He questions everything. He makes non-stop jokes, so the despair that hangs over the family is constantly disrupted by this very disturbing humour produced by Keith. And the humour creates a distance that forces us to think about the situation as much as to feel it, and that avoids melodrama and sloppy sentimentality. The mother...emerged as the guiding moral figure even though it's not preachy and it isn't at all, I must emphasize that. But the mother's reaction was extremely emotional. She was hysterical. She collapsed in a groan of despair. She lashed out in anger. But she was also ambivalent, because although she defends her husband there is always on her part a hesitation because you can see she's not comfortable with his playing God...

There's a terribly violent confrontation with the father. I won't go into it because the climax is all quite wonderful. But Keith brings out the arguments of those who are against mercy killing, so it creates in the script a balance. There's the one side, there's the father on the other, and there's the mother in the middle.