Retrieval (2026)

Notes on what lasts

Christina Neeley with her mother, Retrieval (2026), Directed by Tracy Jarrett

My definition of good art has changed throughout the years. What I’ve found is that if something is truly good, it stays with me over long periods of time.

There are certain films and books I have this relationship with. Works that I didn’t necessarily love upon first encounter, or didn’t fully understand.

When I first read Septology by Jon Fosse, I found it difficult and tedious. There were moments I enjoyed deeply, but overall I became frustrated reading his experimental work, a novel spanning hundreds of pages written as a single sentence.

But something happened after I finished. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Months, years later.

I thought about the rhythm of the language, how long it must have taken him to write a book that stretched across 700 pages without ever truly ending. His meditations on life, art, religion, and death.

The book kept resurfacing in my mind. I read it two years ago, and it still seeps into random moments of my day. And it was only then that I realized: this is a great work.

Last week, I attended the Tribeca premiere of Retrieval, a documentary produced by my friend Rebecca Stern and directed by first-time filmmaker Tracy Jarrett. I had seen a rough cut of the film in early December—no more than 20 minutes—and I remember feeling that it was powerful, with a compelling subject at its center. And because of that, I thought I knew what I was walking into when I watched the finished film. But I quickly realized I had miscalculated its emotional layers.

Retrieval explores the ethics, logistics, and morality surrounding postmortem sperm retrieval (PSMR), a little-known procedure first developed in the 1970s. The film follows Christina Neeley after her fiancé, Wesley, dies suddenly in a car accident. As she navigates a complex medical and legal system, Christina grapples with the possibility of retrieving viable sperm from her late fiancé.

The documentary presents a range of perspectives from physicians who perform the procedure to families and support groups confronting difficult decisions in the wake of loss.

There is probably much to say around the ethics and morality of PSMR, but that’s not what I was left questioning when the film finished. The narrative slowly unfolds as a deep meditation on grief documented in real time–the vast emotional landscape one enters when left alone with fragmented memories.

As I listened to Christina talk in detail about her late fiancé, I kept thinking, long after the film was over, that we don’t know the fullness of someone. We don’t know everything about who they are, their struggles, their joys. Jarrett’s ability to make you think about your own mortality and fleetingness in life is remarkable.

I was also left thinking about the artistic process and the herculean commitment documentary filmmakers make when they attach themselves to a subject. At the Q&A, Jarrett shared that she left her job to focus on the film, a project that ultimately took nearly six years to complete.

That kind of commitment is not uncommon in documentary filmmaking, but hearing it spoken aloud reminded me that some people encounter a story and immediately recognize that it will become part of their life for years. Not because it is practical, financially sound, or guaranteed to succeed, but because they cannot look away from it.

Maybe that’s another way of recognizing great work. Not only in how it stays with the audience, but in how long it stays with the artist who chooses to make it.

As the days passed after watching Retrieval, I realized it was never only about PSMR. It was about the impossible decisions people are forced to make while grieving. It’s probably too soon to tell if it will stay with me over a long period of time, but so far it’s been almost a week, and I’ve thought about Christina Neeley’s steely determination every day since.