Is it possible to avoid isolation in the world, or is everyone truly alone at the finale? Is every human subject, by definition of its uniqueness and individuality, permanently in solitude, and if so, is this such a bad thing?

It’s Such a Beautiful Day captures one such subjectivity but does not necessarily sway one way or another on indicting Bill’s isolation from the world as some terrible truth. His unique condition, which exists in all of us, merely echoes the tragedy of not building a life with love within it. We do not get to know much about Bill’s previous history, that before his condition, to where he had no plans or activities in developing this quality. That quality being love, once again, and more specifically, building a world which goes beyond simple validation of one’s existence, but building one which provides re-assurance and security and above all meaning.

Meaning is what Bill is challenged by as he walks towards his coffin. And meaning is what he lacks simply because he gave no thought or consideration to it beforehand. It is unwise to equivocate love and meaning here, for meaning can be more abstract than the human emotional reception of social validation. But love in this format, that of receiving gratitude for being, can extend itself into the infinite and correspond to something transcendental. That is to say, building a life with love in it as a goal is building a world with meaning in it. It is painting color where it otherwise would be black.

Bill does not wrestle with God here, and thankfully so – he is purely existential, and It’s Such a Beautiful Day forces Bill as a man in isolation with the greater surrounding he inhabits to create his own values and meaning in this world. Greater meaning can be had by those who stretch their gifts, their paint, into posterity, but all humanity has the same gift even if they lack the same reach. All humanity has the gift of creating love in their lives and beauty in their souls which make jagged rocks that cut into the soul scrapes that can be stitched versus mortal wounds which can never be overcome. In a practical sense then, this is the origins of the vitality of the family, to shelter the human subject from the wildness of the world outside of his control, so that when he is disturbed there is an anchor in which he can recover from.

Bill’s slow descent towards death illustrates to us a person who did not care about building such love around him. It does not exactly mean that his psychedelics would have been prevented somehow, that is beside the point. The point is that he categorically would have been less confused with someone to hold him and to care for him while he walked through the valley of the shadow of death. The fact his girlfriend breaks up with him the day of his diagnosis only emphasizes the danger of neglecting to secure the creation of meaning and love in one’s life, before it is too late.

Grade: A+

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