Fast Eddie
2022 · 14m · New Zealand
Directed by Keely Meechan
Genres: biography, drama, sports
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
Diagnosed with a terminal illness that is taking his voice and mobility, former cyclist Eddie trains with his daughter for one last ride around Lake Dunstan.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a well-intentioned sports-meets-mortality film, but Meechan plays it straight when the premise begs for something weirder—the real subversion would've been letting the absurdity of one last ride actually breathe.
Meechan positions herself squarely in the lineage of intimate sports documentaries and end-of-life portraiture, executing with formal restraint and a clear eye for how silence and landscape can carry emotional weight without sentimentality.
The decision to let Eddie's physical deterioration unfold through the simple grammar of the ride itself—no voiceover, no diagnosis monologue, just the body on the bike—is what transforms what could've been maudlin into something genuinely moving.