1 in 2 review – compassionate film about dealing with bowel cancer is a personal plea on behalf of the young

‘I am lucky, as I have become old.” That is the pithy, personal summary offered by English film-maker David Wilkinson, whose previous movie was his thoughtful, eloquent film The Marbles, which reopened the case for the restitution of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. Now he reveals that he was in fact battling stage four bowel cancer throughout its making, and this new and very personal film is now about his own condition, a film in which the director is front and centre, speaking candidly to camera in the very midst of his treatment.

In fact, 1 in 2 is specifically about his shock and sadness that so many people alongside him in waiting rooms, or online in bowel cancer discussion groups are so young, in their 40s, or 30s, or 20s. Wilkinson makes it his business to give these people a voice, along with the medical professionals in the NHS who are battling to help them. He also wants to find something out: why is something that was once considered an old person’s disease on the rise in younger age groups in developed nations? It appears to be due to diet and lifestyle. Could it be microplastics? There are no clearcut answers.

This is a sobering but very compassionate, humorous, generous film, and one that shows how Wilkinson’s highly personal and unselfconsciously confessional style has grown into something very watchable and distinctive. He is the star of this film, but a more self-effacing star can hardly be imagined. It is not fashionable in documentary cinema for the film-maker’s voice and viewpoint to be so explicit, but Wilkinson has gone his own way – without a whole lot of help from the British film establishment – and made a real success of it.

Wilkinson’s interviews are revealing and moving; a young woman called Milli Tanner is particularly candid and courageous. Again and again, younger people with the disease report that they wasted precious time as a result of misdiagnosis – symptoms that would be urgently treated in older people are written off with the young. So Wilkinson is an evangelist for the bowel cancer test that you get through the post, and not to delay; the very English habits of avoidance and embarrassment can kill you. As for Mr Wilkinson himself, I hope to see another film from him soon.