Specifications
This movie was released in 2004, and starred Adam Sandler and Drew
Barrymore.
Status
I do not own this movie, but checked it out from the library. I
have added it to my wish list for when I get money.
Review
This movie is significant in that it shows a person
with a disability, and her learning to cope. That is, Lucy has a head
injury with prevents her from turning short term memory into long
term memory during sleep. This was caused due to a car accident, and
the result is every morning she wakes up and thinks its the morning
of the accident, all her short term memory is erased. She remembers
things from before the accident with no trouble, and has family and
friends she knows, so she can live a "normal" life. Time,
however, stands still for her.
The DVD comments not the similarity to the movie
Groundhog Day (which I have
not seen).
Then one day, Henry (who is
the protagonist) meets her. He has an interest, not knowing her
condition. Since they hit is off, he comes back the next day, she
doesn't know him, of course, which throws him for a loop. However, he
introduces himself again. By the third day, her friends tell him
about her condition, so he tries to capitalize on it. However, doing
the same thing that attracted her before doesn't interest her this
time.
Eventually it is discovered
that her father and brother are setting everything up the way it was
on the day of the accident so that she would feel good, and not have
to face her disability. Henry becomes concerned - warning them that
eventually she will become old, and they will not be able to hide the
passage of time. That is, from her perspective she will have gone to
bed young, then woke up the next morning old.
Henry decides on a new tack.
Rather, he meets her first thing in the morning, and presents her
with a video which depicts all that has happened over the year since
the accident - including the accident, and the reality of her
condition. Later, we find out that once she was aware of her
condition, she started keeping a detailed diary. That is, each night
she writes everything that happened during the day, so the diary
becomes her memory. She reads it each morning.
Eventually, she decides she
cannot keep holding Henry back from his life, so she informs him she
is erasing him from her diary, and her life. But Henry misses her.
Eventually, she cannot remember him consciously, but she (being an
artist) draws his picture all the time. At the end, they get married,
and she has a daughter. He goes on the trip he was planning on, but
brings his family along. Lucy still gets up every morning and reads
her diary, but they are happy.
This is significant because,
even though the disability is fictional, it shows how even that
handicap can be lived with. Not cured, but lived with. From the
previews I had thought that the movie was making fun of a handicap,
but I was glad to be wrong.
There is an additional point
made in this movie, and that is the change in Henry. The opening
credits indicate that Henry is a rounder - always starting
relationships with women, but never allowing the relationship to
develop. Just as Lucy learns to live with her handicap, Henry learns
to care about Lucy, to love Lucy. In a sense, this change in Henry
exactly parallels the change in Lucy. Lucy learns to accept the
passage of time, Henry learns to accept that he can form a long term
relationship with women.
This is another reason this
movie is significant. Henry's growing up (and it is growing up) is
directly because unlike the previous women Henry had been with, Lucy
needed him, and the needing significantly effected the relationship.
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