In the three days before an operation on the cancer that is threatening to kill her, a film director (Mercedes Sampietro) remembers a few of the most poignant and meaningful relationships and dreams of her life. The premise for this partially autobiographical movie was taken from the real-life dilemma of the actual director, Pilar Miro. Miro had to undergo dangerous open-heart surgery and used her own experience to co-write the screenplay for Gary Cooper, Who Art in Heaven. In the film, the director's romantic involvement with a journalist and an art student, as well as how she views the results of those relationships, are aspects of her life that get careful scrutiny. A photograph of Gary Cooper just before he died brings mortality sharply into focus for her, hence the title of the film. She also considers her ambitions, dreams that may no longer have time to come true -- and wonders if they ever had a chance anyway. As the surgery approaches, the director's own pessimism colors her view of the life she has spent until that moment.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide