‘You’ve totally got one of those inspirational quote calendars, haven’t you?” says teenaged Alzheimer’s carer Chloé (Eloise Smyth) in her therapy session. “No, I’ve got three of them,” replies her counsellor. That about sums up this well-meaning but hapless sub-Hallmark comedy-drama – whose attempts to sweeten the subject matter with humour only serve to direct it towards every cliche-branch on its way down the tree of trite life lessons.
Chloé is your typical feckless sixth-former, busy warring with her mum Eileen (Elizabeth Berrington) and bunking off her swimming training. After her grandma Peg (former Dynasty actor Stephanie Beacham) forgets to put the chicken in the oven one day and Eileen moves her into her own home, the youngster is drafted in as an impromptu carer. There’s a certain complicity between Chloé and her otherwise spunky grandparent; wanting to defy the diagnosis, they draw up a “fuck-it list” of things to do. But harsh biological realities cut it short.
The clunky attempts at levity – like Peg razzing around on her new mobility scooter – might be bearable if she and her illness were sharply detailed. But Beacham has little to grasp on to, in terms of her character’s deeper past and personality. And there’s an alarming void – apart from one manufactured panic as she goes awol on a pier – where an account of her decline should be. With Peg already made passive by her predicament, Elizabeth Hrib’s script doubles down by increasingly limiting her to a comic foil. When Chloé has an impending snog with a fellow support-group regular (Harry Kirton), there’s her nan to wreck it by belting out Rockin’ Robin.
This condescension extends to other characters too, including Chloé’s dad – whose sole purpose is to lean round doorways looking concerned – as well as Eileen. Reducing her to a pill-popping haranguer and emotional incontinent undermines Grey Matter’s plea for empathy as the film switches focus to the burden of the carer in its second half. The barrage of blearily montaged redemptive cliches does the rest. It probably is possible to make a feelgood Alzheimer’s film, but this misses the mark by a mile.
Source: theguardian.com
