In Nicholas Bruckman’s Not Going Quietly, the journey of activist Ady Barkan is documented with riveting gusto, highlighting both the day-to-day challenges of Barkan, who has the neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and his wider fight for universal health care in the United States. He was diagnosed in 2016, and upon realizing he only had three years to live, as well as having to navigate the high costs of his care, he started a campaign with other health-care activists to advocate for a “Medicare for All” plan. Traveling across the country, he began asking politicians hard-hitting questions.

An incredibly engaging and likeable individual, Barkan is the real star here, and his life is one that is easily cinematic. His passion for his cause and self-deprecating humor make him easy to root for and be inspired by. In one scene, Barkan and a fellow activist he just met on the same flight, Liz Jaff, confront a potential swing vote, Republican Senator Jeff Flake, onboard. Barkan asks Flake why he wants to cut care for people like him, to which Flake responds with a sly smile that he would have no comment. The video would become viral, spurring a campaign led by Barkan and Jaff called “Be a Hero,” which aimed to confront Republican politicians in 30 key Congressional districts in the run-up to the 2018 midterms.

Barkan has a son, Carl, who was born shortly after Barkan’s ALS diagnosis, and a wife, Kelly, a professor at University of California, Berkeley. The film balances well Barkan’s hectic life on the road and the intimacy of his homelife, made all the more powerful by Kelly’s support. The stakes are emphasized even more so when Barkan encounters a near-fatal brush with death.

What the film evokes is, indeed, an emotional roller coaster. Seeing Carl become a toddler and learning how to talk as the film progresses catalyzes the urgency of Barkan’s political and personal aims. When Barkan breaks down when talking about the severity of the disease, the moment is intense.

By the end, Barkan speaks through an eye-controlled speech generator, having gotten a tracheostomy that would potentially extend his life by a decade, and Barkan hasn’t slow down one bit. To this day, he is still passionately involved with the cause.

Not Going Quietly is ultimately a film that reminds its audience that for too many Americans, there is no separation between the “personal” and the “political.”