50 First Dates has always been one of my favorite movies of all time. I love Adam Sandler (older Adam Sandler movies) and like I've said before, I'm a sucker for cheesy rom-coms.
Thinking about what I wanted to write about for my next NeuroNote blog post, I was watching this movie and I figured... why not on 50 First Dates? It is a fictional disorder and a comedy, but it still shows the affect of TBI's on an individual as well as their loved ones.
50 First Dates came out in 2004 and is about Henry Roth, who is a marine biologist in Hawaii. Henry is a womanizer, often tricking tourists into sleeping with him with lies about his identity.
One day, he meets Lucy and they hit it off, however, the next day he goes to talk to her and she has no recollection of him at all.
This is because Lucy was involved in a serious car accident and suffered from a brain injury that effects her memory. Her diagnosis is a type of amnesia called "anterograde amnesia". She cannot remember anything besides everything that happened up till the accident. Every day, her dad and brother re-live the day before the accident, following the exact same routine in order to not scare Lucy.
Then Henry comes into the picture. He makes a video summarizing everything Lucy has missed the past year (major events in sports, politics) and shows it to her every morning. Lucy reacts differently each day, but ultimately she comes to terms with her condition and carries on her day with Henry.
Until one day Lucy overhears Henry talking to her father about an excursion to Alaska that he had been planning for a while, but had put it off in order to stay with Lucy. Lucy decides then to cut Henry out of her life and re-create her daily journal without him in it. She also moves into a community center to take stress off of her dad and brother.
The end of the story ends happily, Henry and Lucy get married and have children and they even go on the Alaskan excursion together.
The reason I chose to write a NeuroNote on this movie is because I think it gets overlooked how someone can feel like a burden. Although Lucy's condition is not exactly a real condition, the strain of the aftermath on her family is something families have to deal in reality. Of course, a family member/loved one is never a burden but it definitely adds more stress to everyone involved. Lucy felt guilty: she felt like she was holding her family and Henry back from living their life. Often, we talk about how the affected individual becomes depressed because their ability to live their life to the fullest is changed...but in this movie, Lucy becomes upset because she thinks her loved ones are missing out on life to care for her. It's an interesting perspective from the other side that I don't think is often considered. Of course, the movie leaves out a lot about the reality of coping with a TBI. From watching the movie, Lucy had no other care giver in her life to help her cope with her condition besides her family members (which is incredibly unrealistic). Her family actually does everything in their power to try to hide Lucy's condition from herself.
Very insightful!
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