The original post: /r/movies by /u/Zaphoid411 on 2025-01-03 11:57:21.
"The Remarkable Life of Ibelin" (or just "Ibelin" on IMDB) absolutely broke me.
It's a documentary about Mats Steen, a Norwegian man who died in 2014 of a degenerative muscular disease. The disease was progressive and by his teens he was wheelchair bound, his condition just got worse from there. In his adult life he became engrossed in the online RPG World of Warcraft, which saddened his family as he withdrew from them. However, Mats left them his login info for the game when he died...
His parents decided to log in and post a message on his account about his passing... they were immediately flooded with Mats' online friends reaching out with their condolences and stories of online friendship. The family digs into his account and discovers that Mats was not simply gaming, but living a very rich and fulfilling life in the game where he was not limited by his condition. He made many friends, genuinely affected those he cared about and even found love. His online community mostly had no knowledge of his real life condition.
I cried multiple times, but absolutely bawled at the end at his funeral when some of his guildmates attended his funeral and the woman that he had a genuine, loving and complicated relationship with was one of his pall barers.
15/10 - cannot reccomend it enough.