As some other critics have noted, it's sort of like Grey Gardens lite, but I have to wonder if any/everyone who wrote about this following it's New York Film Festival premiere (or any other fest screenings) have to revisit their opinions following the final sucker-punch celebrity deaths of Fisher followed by Reynolds in 2016.

I'm of two minds on this: yes, there may not be too much different in seeing these natural-born-entertainer-Characters (though Reynolds more-so, they can't seem to help breaking out into song, and usually they both know the words),and no, there is a sadder pall on everything knowing they're gone and, as the Rolling Stones sang, 'This could be the last time, maybe the last time, I don't know,' and we do know for Reynolds it is and for Fisher (who mentions she's off to shoot Force Awakens and is shooting it during the filming of the doc) it is too.

In a way though it's about a mother and daughter, the through-line is really about Reynolds and her long, winding goodbye to entertainment; she does a concert to a large sports-style auditorium, and while she's not singing badly one can see the lights are trying to hide that the auditorium is not full and how she can barely get down the stairs from the stage. But she can't stop/won't stop, so who knows if her "final" show in Las Vegas, where she requests Carrie to come on stage to sing (with, as Carrie shows, awkwardly scripted banter for them to do).

The question through much of what is a scattered-in-structure document of two people at a particular time looking back at things is: how do you ever end being "you", whether that's Debbie Reynolds or Carrie Fisher? There are some scenes that are extraneous, if I can step back and look at it critically as a documentary. Even at 93 minutes it may be too long. But you can't escape how meaningful this is now seeing it with the context of knowing this is a tribute to these wonderful people as much as it's a document of their relationship. It's both, really, and you know for all the pain that they've caused each other, with Postcards from the Edge as a prime example of their contentious moments, there's real love and friendship. Not to mention there's brother/son Todd Fisher, the brother who may be *weirder* in some ways (with his movie posters chronicling how his parents started out and then came together and split apart, and his Knight Rider car which is simply WTF),on the sidelines, part of it but too "normal" as a nice little boy who grew up around all this.

So if you like or even have some passing admiration for Reynolds, who seems like a born entertainer but really did have to work at it (being naturally beautiful helped too, but being molded by the MGM studio system was the key - as someone here says, maybe Carrie, she couldn't help but be 'on' all the time),and Fisher, who struggled for years with bi-polar disorder and a host of other addictions and ailments to still be around for her, and the mother for her daughter. Along the way there are nice 'cameos' from Griffin Dunne (who introduces himself at the foot of Fisher's stairs yelling, "hey, f***face" with affection),and Barbara Streisand on the TV.

PS: No, really, a Knight Rider car? Really? PPS: The footage of Fisher at a convention doesn't quite sync up to what she wrote about in her book, The Princess Diarist, but why carp?

Get out your hankies, Carrie and Debbie are together again, along with Heat Miser, aka George S. Irving, their "Irene" co-star who died the same week they did. "Tsumommy", as Carrie calls the wonderful eccentric lady she calls mom, someone my mom had introduced me to at under 10 years of age. Every year was either Molly Brown or Sister Anne or both. "Oh just do what mom says. It makes life easier", Debbie says, and if my mom said this, I'd do it just out of respect, more for the memory of those Sunday evenings of long ago. Or perhaps the memory of seeing Debbie on stage from the third row of the orchestra at the Pantages in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", balling my eyes out within her vision during "I Ain't Down Yet". Add in seeing Carrie in "Wishful Drinking" at Studio 54, and I think I know these people, whom I really don't.

It is with great love that Carrie shows off everything personal in her life, and it is much about Carrie as it is Debbie. There's also Todd Fisher and his beautiful wife Catherine Hickland, a soap opera star I've known in screen since I was 20 on "Capitol", following her to both "Loving" and "One Life to Live" where she played wonderful vixens. Carrie, immortalized as both a pez dispenser and a blow up doll, has been a champion of saying, "Hey, I'm messed up and I know it, and there's nothing I can do about it, so I'll deal with it, and the world just needs to get over it." It is obvious that they love their fans, but the longing to be themselves in quiet dignity as just mom and daughter is there, even if they are immortalized on screen as Meryl and Shirley in "Postcards from the Edge".

Christmas 2016 was a downer with their sudden deaths, and in watching this, I have hope for their souls. Drugs schmugs, I say to the detractors who dismiss Carrie for her addiction. She's funny, honest, real, easy going, complicated. Imagine if this was the Judy/Liza or Lorna syndrome, Janet Leigh or Jamie Lee Curtis, but with Carrie, it's just honesty from start to finish. Debbie is so vibrant on stage, so when they deal with her aging, it is heartbreaking, and these last few weeks were like losing my own mom, not something I've gone through yet, but a reminder of what you must do to prepare for that time. I cherish those moments I shared with my mom watching "Molly Brown" and "The Singing Nun", her memory of going to see "Molly" with her mother in law (my beloved late grandmother) at Radio City Music Hall and my seeing live with her sly wink towards me after seeing me weep, and later seeing the film on the big screen at the Egyptian. It must be said that for younger fans, if Debbie Reynolds is known as Princess Leia's mother, that makes her a queen.

This documentary was released ahead of schedule after the deaths of Carrie Fisher and of her mother Debbie Reynolds, a day later.

Bright Lights is an intimate portrait of two Hollywood legends. It is Reynolds who due to age and ill health was making a farewell as a performer. Her career spanned 70 years including Singin in the Rain.

Whereas Carrie Fisher is seen in this documentary trying to get in shape for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, if only she can keep of the Coke, the drink that is.

Debbie's son Todd Reynolds comes across as the most normal even though he managed to shoot himself in the leg as a kid. He talks about how for decades he and his mother wanted to get a museum going that would house all the Hollywood memorabilia that Debbie Reynolds collected. It included a chair once used by Elizabeth Taylor, a woman who married Eddie Fisher, the children's father.

Bright Lights was meant to be a tribute to Debbie Reynolds, she is seen incoherent at times like when she goes to Hollywood to collect a lifetime achievement award. When she travels in a casino she needs a mobility scooter.

However it also became a tribute to Carrie Fisher after her sudden death. She was always more open with the demons in her life, her bipolar and use of drugs. Her father's absenteeism from her life after he left the family for Elizabeth Taylor.

Carrie Fisher also likens her appearances in Star Wars conventions to lap dancing. A quick photo and autograph for cash, it was lucrative.

The documentary was a let down in its editing to show both of them slightly out of whack. Both mother and daughter lived nearby which meant Carrie Fisher would regularly visit to take care of her mother. However once scene was cunningly edited to imply Carrie was tasting her dog's food.

It was also too scattered with footage spanning some years, so you see Carrie talking to her father who had died in 2010.