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I feel very lucky in my work at times as I get to do things that I never expected to come my way. As a charity Dementia UK are often asked to review films, novels, TV scripts, etc., where there is a character who has dementia.

Over the years this has fallen to me. I have become the charity’s front-line person for such requests. Not sure why. Perhaps because I read a lot of fictional literature and will often tell others of my latest ‘good read’ but also, hopefully, because my opinions are worthwhile. Whatever the reason it has led to some very interesting experiences and opportunities. I was invited to lunch with the late Dame Glenda Jackson, and we discussed how she would play the character of Maud, the lead character who had dementia in Film 4’s, ‘Elizabeth is Missing’. At the film launch she kindly acknowledged me personally for my ‘invaluable advice’. I was invited onto the film set of ‘Casualty’ to advise an actor whose character had vascular dementia as he accompanied his stage wife to this famous accident and emergency department. Sadly, I wasn’t allowed to say ‘cut’ but did influence how certain scenes were acted out so as to remain true to dementia. Another request was to proofread Richard Osman’s fourth novel and comment on the accuracy of his representation of dementia lived out in one of the main characters. This time I got my name in print and received an acknowledgement for my time and expertise at the end of the book and also a personally signed copy.

More recently I was asked to review the latest film to portray one of its characters having dementia; ‘Memory’, made by Michel Franco. One of the two central characters was Saul who had a diagnosis of young-onset dementia and was played by Peter Sarsgaard. The other character, Syliva, a care worker, was played by Jessica Chastain. Conscious of how many films that have a person with dementia as a central character, I prepared myself for a film about dementia that portrayed beautiful people in beautiful roles and in beautiful settings. But no, right from the outset we meet Sylvia, a single parent to teenager Anna, as she attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in her battle with a drinking problem. We find she lives in a rough suburb of New York and in an apartment that is certainly ‘frayed around the edges’.  I start to perk up and see this film is going to blow the Hollywood, veneered stereotypes I had expected, out of the water. Clearly Sylvia has a history of discord, trauma and pain that piece together as the film progresses. Her other family members slowly come into focus. Her life as a single parent to teenager Anna, to whom she is a devoted and guarded mother. The relationship with her older sister, who is married with children, is good and provides much support, especially for Anna in hanging out with her cousins.  We see no father but we learn that Sylvia is estranged from her mother and whom Anna has never met in her 13 years of life. As an audience you start to become inquisitive and wish to know more of the back story to Sylvia’s life.

So, when does Saul enter the plot you might ask.  Be patient.  Sylvia attends a school reunion (against her better judgement) at the behest of her sister, who feels it would be good for her to get out more.  Enter Saul who says nothing to Sylvia but watches her from a distance and then follows her home, through the subway, along the streets and finally sits outside her apartment where he remains all night.  Sylvia was aware she was being followed but locks, bolts and bars her door and goes to bed. In the morning, after a night of rain, Sylvia sees Saul huddled on the pavement outside her apartment.  She approaches him but Saul cannot account for himself, and we start to see that Saul has problems with his memory and in his ability to give an account of himself.  He has the contact details of his brother with whom he lives, along with his niece, and Sylvia makes a call.  It emerges that Saul’s niece (a little older than Anna) is supportive and relates well to her uncle but Isaac, his brother, has long since decided that Saul requires all care because of his young onset dementia.  Whilst perhaps well intentioned, he is very controlling and risk adverse in his support of his brother.

Sylvia believes she remembers Saul from their schooldays and her memories are not good ones. She recalls incidents of sexual abuse by several boys, including Saul.  Being the feisty and forthright person she is, she confronts Saul with this accusation, but he states he cannot remember but doesn’t think he did those things. I will not spoil the plot further in case you wish to go and see this at the cinema (which I strongly recommend you do), but we start to see a complicated interplay in how memory can let us down and has done so in the two central characters.  For Saul he is losing his short-term memory due to his dementia where new memories are not laid down and stored. Despite this he remains in good humour and seems to take each day as it comes, often seeing the humour in not remembering.  Sylvia however has memories that are based on trauma and historic child sexual abuse, and we learn that her memories are sometimes distorted and not always accurate or reliable.

Memory is an essential part of our human existence. Memories give form to who we are, what we know and what we think and derived from our ability to remember. However, it is now increasingly becoming known that our memories can be unreliable and susceptible to modification and change. Not only this but research has shown that memories can be rewritten to some degree, each time we recall them, and, in some cases, our recollections can even be entirely fabricated. Perhaps this is what we see in Sylvia.  Whilst she experienced all those traumatic events as a child, over time her memories have become distorted and, as we later learn, have become fabricated to now include Saul as one of her past abusers. So why can our memories change? Research suggests it may be a way of enabling our brains to adapt to changing environments and time by inserting new data (memories) and layering these on old recollections, perhaps to enable our memories retain relevance to our current situation.

We know too that some types of memories may be more flexible than others. Semantic memories, the recollection of ideas, concepts, and facts commonly regarded as general knowledge, are relatively stable However, episodic memories as in our recollection of previous experiences together with their context in terms of time, place, associated emotions, can be much more unreliable. So, in Sylvia and Saul we see that the past is unstable and so is the present.

We are largely unaware of how we use memories; they naturally come and go in our thoughts, actions and conversations and are an essential aspect of who we are and in forming our personal identity. The film ‘Memory’ gets us to think about our memories differently.