"that's my sweetheart in there"

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2004)

My mother died two years of complications from Alzheimer's, so it's with reluctance that I watched this movie -- but am glad now that I did. This is a love story with Alzheimer's as a reference point, lovingly directed by Nick Cassavetes, whose mother, Gena Rowlands, plays the elder Allie (I think she can prepare her acceptance speech at next year's Academy Awards ceremony). The movie comes ever so close to drifting into parity but I was blown away when Allie and her mother, played by Joan Allen, visited the sawmill and she confessed her feelings for an old flame. I was reminded of an earlier scene that Allie's mother said Noah was nothing but "trash, trash, trash," but we realize later that it wasn't so much Allie, but herself, that she was trying to convince. So, unlike Daisy Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby," Allie Hamilton, a rich girl, marries Noah Calhoun, a poor boy, and the angels in heaven rejoice. Anyone who has lost a loved one to Alzheimer's or just remembers his first love should see this one -- but take along plenty of Kleenex; believe me, you'll need it.