‘Exit Music’ is as Real, Heartwrenching, and Hopeful as Documentaries Get

Ethan Rice is 28. He is a musician, a stop-motion artist, a pleasant cynic, an ardent enthusiast of the modern independent arts (as told through enamel Radiohead pins, film posters, and a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion show outing), a lay philosopher, a son, a brother, and a man diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth.

As Ethan’s father, Ed, triumphantly tel…