Debbie is undeterred: “Like George Burns says, I’m going to stay on stage until I drop dead, and then I’m going to have myself stuffed like Trigger. And then I’ll put me in a museum.” Despite her age, Reynolds remains impeccably elegant and quick with a joke. “Turn around this way because your rear end is to the camera,” she chides her daughter, who’s bent over a suitcase to help pack for her mother’s engagement at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. Performing is transformative for Reynolds. The theater may be far from full, but it's moving to see the emotions that register across the faces of her mostly senior citizen audience when she sings “Tammy.” On stage, she’s vital, but that only makes her everyday frailty — which worsens over the course of the film — all the more apparent. Backstage, a crew member lovingly adjusts the fit of Reynolds’ pantyhose on her toes; another gently escorts the actress down a series of low steps. Fisher’s relationship with Hollywood isn’t remotely as sentimental as her mother’s. We travel with Carrie to a sci-fi convention, where — touching up her hair and mascara behind a curtain on the show floor — she’s booked for what she calls a “celebrity lap dance.” Pint-sized Princess Leias and Jedis with plastic lightsabers have queued for hours for a two-second interaction with Fisher and a $70 autograph. Despite her professed ambivalence, Fisher gives a lot of herself to her fans (one of whom cries upon meeting her), cuddling perfect strangers for what seems like an endless series of photos. Afterward, she’s utterly drained, lying down on a couch with her dog Gary in what can only be described as a “dignified, movie-star way.” In Bright Lights, Fisher is the same force of nature we loved to watch in movies and read in her own words. But some moments have become more poignant in retrospect, reframed by her unexpected passing, as when she spots a decorative plate that reads, “Prepare to Meet Thy God” while out shopping in London. “Oh, when?” Fisher quips. Todd likens his mother to the Titanic-surviving character she embodied in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, just as Carrie notes Star Wars fans talk to her as if she herself were Princess Leia. And to be fair, both women overcame more adversity than any iceberg or Sith Lord.