When the Sunset Hall retirement home in Los Angeles was founded in the 1920s, socialism was an ideal, not an insult; even now, the facility boldly dubs itself "The home for freethinking elders." Laura Gabbert's Sunset Story documents the friendship between two of those grey-haired radicals: Irja Lloyd, a sunny former labor organizer, and Lucille Alpert, a grumpy ex-social worker. The two ladies begin each day by meeting over breakfast to complain about what they saw on the news—a common hobby of many seniors—but during the remainder of the day, they actually do something about it, by attending rallies and registering people to vote.
Sunset Story has its share of look-at-these-cute-old-commies laughs, as the residents derail house meetings to speak on behalf of the underpaid custodial staff, and hang "Free Mumia" banners outside their doors. But Gabbert mostly avoids making her subjects into hobbling punch lines, or even turning them into one-dimensional heroes. She doesn't reveal much about Lloyd or Alpert's prior lives, and instead lets them be what they are at this point: two flawed people in failing bodies, putting up with each others' eccentricities because of a shared activism that gives them something to do with their remaining time.
When it's not about the active social consciousness of the elderly, Sunset Story is about their coming to terms with death. Gabbert records the sense of resignation that surrounds Alpert's impending mortality, and the way Lloyd feels hurt when her friend starts preparing to die, as though giving up on life were tantamount to abandoning her ideals. It doesn't help that part of Alpert's preparation involves shutting out Lloyd, but as Sunset Story makes painfully clear, their friendship is one of circumstance as much as mutual interest. The two enjoy spending time together, but don't seem to know each other too well. For all their external compassion, the ladies relate to each other like two anxious kids at camp, clinging to companionship and worrying what'll happen when summer ends.