Phillippe Francais's film de la semaine

Away From Her

Certificate: 12

Running time: 105m

This week Phillippe runs an intellectual rule over the romantic saga directed by actress Sarah Polley and starring Julie Christie as free spirit struck down by Alzheimer's disease.

If memory serves me correctly, Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration together with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychatric symptoms or behavioral changes.

The most striking early symptom is loss of short-term memory, which usually manifests as minor forgetfulness that becomes steadily more pronounced with illness progression, with relative preservation of older memories.

Famous sufferers of the disease include Enid Blyton, Charles Bronson, Winston Churchill, Perry Como, Rita Hayworth, Charlton Heston, former Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, Iris Murdoch, Ronald Reagan, Sugar Ray Robinson and Harold Wilson.

Movies featuring the disease - as you will no doubt be aware - include The Notebook, Iris and - of course - Erik Van Looy's classic Dutch thriller De Zaak Alzheimer featuring an assassin who develops the disease and cannot function.

Now, where were we.....?

Comments

[Marc Kommode]

Phillippe neglects to mention the classic 1943 documentary Ou Suis-Je? by Swiss-Nepalese maverick Maurice Fong detailing the work of French songwriter/Alzheimer's researcher Toot Oublie. As everyone knows, Oublie was the first person to use rhyming couplets to slow the progress of the disease. Knowing Phillippe, this is undoubtedly a mere oversight.

[susan beckett]

why have you changed sky movies, you are showing less movies and and most are ribbish.sky premier is a joke