The phrase “opposites attract” has rarely rung so true as in Helen and the Bear, a cinéma vérité portrait of a vibrant woman and her most unusual marriage. Helen grew up feeling like a boy and as a young woman realized she was queer but went on to wed a man. And a rather unexpected man at that… Pete was an antiwar, pro-environment Republican congressman in San Mateo, 26 years Helen’s senior. Despite starting a long-term relationship with another woman, Helen remained wed to the man she calls “Bear.”

This clear-eyed, affectionate documentary finds the couple at a critical junction in their 40-year union — captured with striking honesty and intimacy by the director (and Helen’s niece) Alix Blair (Farmer/Veteran). With Pete’s health growing more precarious at age 96, Helen starts to look back at her own life as she contemplates what her world will look like without him. Produced by Rebekah Fergusson (The Case Against 8, Frameline38) and Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson), Helen and the Bear interweaves home movies, family photos, and snippets of Helen’s journals as it observes both a nontraditional couple’s devotion to one another and the woman who followed her own surprising path.