Tag: Film
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Supernova
Supernova is Harry Macqueen’s second movie. It was both written and directed by Macqueen who spent a substantial amount of time researching dementia and visiting dementia support groups. The film is set against the stunning backdrop of the Lake District and features two very established actors and longterm friends playing lovers coming to terms with a…
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The Father
The Father is playwright, Florian Zeller’s directorial debut. He co-wrote the screenplay with fellow playwright Christopher Hampton based on his own 2012 play, Le Père. I’ve read and written about Le Père on several occasions. It’s an important dementia text in its attempts to allow the audience to see the world through the eyes of someone living with dementia. It…
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The Savages
The Savages is a 2007 black comedy set on the East Coast of the USA. It stars Laura Linney, the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Bosco and was directed by Tamara Jenkins. Linney and Seymour Hoffman play brother and sister Jon and Wendy Savage. It’s fair to say, they’re both already struggling a little…
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Away From Her
Canadian director, Sarah Polley’s Away From Her was one of my first encounters of a dementia narrative on the big screen. Polley wrote the screenplay based on Alice Munro’s beautiful short story, The Bear Came Over the Mountain and was determined from the outset to cast Julie Christie in the lead as Fiona, a smart, passionate woman who is…
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What They Had
Bridget (played by Hilary Swank), rushes back to her hometown of Chicago after her mother is found wandering, confused in a snowstorm. Her father Burt, (Robert Foster) and brother, Nicky, (Michael Shannon), spend Christmas arguing over whether their mother, Ruth, (Blythe Danner), should be moved into a residential care facility or retire to Florida as…
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Falling
Falling is actor, Viggo Mortensen’s debut effort as both a writer and director and it is a stunning accomplishment. Mortensen casts himself as John, a successful pilot, living in California with his husband and their adopted daughter. The movie begins, (in quite shocking fashion), with a scene on a plane. John is flying home from the…