Fifty First Dates - Movie Review Example

Running head: 50 First s 50 First s of the of the 50 First s Introduction In the movie “50 First s”, the main character, Lucy Whitmore, experiences a horrible accident while riding a car. This accident damaged her brain in a way that she was unable to remember the happening events of the near past and she became a patient of short-term memory loss. The part of the brain which was more affected by this accident was her temporal lobe and to be more precise hippocampal region was actually the damaged portion of her brain. According to the scientists and studies this part of brain plays a vital role in developing and retaining new memories. The movie “50 First Dates” is important as it correctly depicts the behaviour and problems faced by the person whose hippocampal region is damaged. Discussion The central character of the movie “50 First Dates”, Lucy, wakes up every morning and imagines it to be that of October 13th, 2002’s. 13th October is the date of her father’s birth and it is the same date when she, with her father, had a car accident. After that accident she remembers everything up till the accident but does not remember anything that happened after it. Lucy believes that it is the 13th of October that makes her do the work that she had scheduled for that day. After doing the planned activities for the day of 13th October when she goes to bed at night, according to the movie 50 First Dates, “her slate is wiped clean” and then the next morning she starts the same planned activities for October 13th once again from the beginning. Henry Roth, a wildlife veterinarian living in Hawaii, is another character who has to face problems due to the illness of Lucy. The meeting of Henry and Lucy took place at a local café and later on he took her out on a date. Henry fell in love with Lucy but with the start of his love life started problems in his life as well. When Lucy woke up in the morning she was panicky as she had forgotten him and everything that had occurred the day before. Everyday Henry had to make plans to meet Lucy and make her fall in love with him repeatedly. The psychological problem that Lucy was facing also made Henry suffer. He had to make daily efforts to get her back. He had to go on a date everyday with her and had to make her fall in love with him. However, all his efforts go in vain, as, for her, he becomes a complete stranger the next day she wakes up. For instance, one morning Lucy wakes up in the bed with Henry and starts shouting and goes crazy as she took him to be a stranger. A certain form of amnesia is caused due to the damage occurred to her brain in its hippocampal region. “Goldfield’s Syndrome” is the name given to this form of amnesia in the movie. Though Goldfield’s Syndrome is no disease in real life or in medical science and is totally imaginary but the symptoms that Lucy experiences in the 50 First Dates are similar to that of anterograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia is a psychological problem. People who suffer from anterograde amnesia are unable to make long-term memories which have occurred after a certain incident as, for example, a car accident. Anterograde amnesia is not like retrograde amnesia (Smith et al., 2010). In retrograde amnesia the patient does not remember the happenings that have occurred before a certain incident. Anterograde amnesia is still quite a mysterious disease as it is still not understood that through which process the memories are stored in the human brain; however, science has made advancements to the level that it has discovered which parts of the human brain are involved in storing data and memories. Besides any shocking brain injury, anterograde amnesia can also be caused due to the use of drugs. In case of brain injury, hippocampus region or surrounding cortices are the places of brain that are affected causing anterograde amnesia. In the case of Lucy, anterograde amnesia was not caused by any drug but occurred due to traumatic brain injury. That is why all of the events that had taken place before the car accident, for example, the events of her childhood, the names of relatives and friends, her identity, her residence, and so on are retained in Lucy’s memory but those that take place after the occurrence of car accident cannot be saved in her memory. After the accident everything that she learns or comes across becomes an entirely new knowledge for her every day. According to psychologists, a person whose hippocampal region in brain is damaged or injured is unable to send new pieces of information and memories to hippocampus so that they can be permanently stored as its part in the brain (Baxendale, 2004). Lucy, after the accident, is unable to process new knowledge provided to her for more than a day but remembers the events that took place years ago. Throughout the day she is able to keep new information, make use of it and work accordingly but the knowledge is not saved for the period of more than a day and that is why cannot be decoded the next day. Still, the hippocampus region can form some specific kind of memories like procedural memories. Conclusion The movie 50 First Dates very aptly showed the problems with memory and anterograde amnesia. Different types of memory problems have been demonstrated very accurately throughout the movie. The character of Lucy remained the centre of focus as she is the one subject to memory loss and showed the signs and symptoms of the disease correctly. Through her it was shown to the audience that the patients suffering from anterograde amnesia are able to understand and encode the knowledge provided to them daily; however, they are unable to save and store them in their brains rightly. In the movie her procedural memory has been shown as working properly as she paints the wall every day. She, however, has lost declarative memory as every morning when she wakes up she takes it as the same day. 50 First Dates does not only show the attitude of someone as Lucy if s/he does not remember a new day, family or friends but also the pain the relatives and friends take in making the patient comfortable with what s/he remembers. The movie also represents the reaction of a lover when the beloved forgets him every day and the steps taken by the friends and relatives to remove or minimise the effects of the ailment of the patient suffering from anterograde amnesia. It is only with the help and patience of loved ones that a patient can recover from anterograde amnesia. On the whole 50 First Dates is a good movie that clearly depicts the problems that can occur with human brain and memory, specially the problem of forgetfulness. References Baxendale, S. (2004). “Memories arent made of this: amnesia at the movies.” BMJ. 329:1480-3. Segal, P. (Director). (2004). 50 First Dates [Motion Picture]. Smith, C., Frascino, J., Kripke, D., McHugh, P., Treisman, G., & Squire, L. (2010). “Losing memories overnight: A unique form of human amnesia.” Neuropsychologia. 48(10): 2833–2840. Read More