A Tender FilmYou’ll Not Want to Forget Featuring Five Oscar Winners (Movie Review)
Not to Forget
Rating: 9/10
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24jR6J8hCRM
Director & Screenwriter: Valerio Zanoli
Style: Drama
Time: 84 minutes
Official Site: www.nottoforget.online
Review by Mike Szymanski
“Not to Forget” is remarkable in several ways, but most importantly it’s the beautiful story of a tender relationship starring two relatively unknown actors who reveal what it’s like to deal with a horrible disease. These unknown actors are surrounded by a stellar cast.
Most people will be impressed — as they should be — by the five, yes FIVE, Academy Award winners in this film, and for two of them it marks their final performances in a movie before they passed away.
This is the final performance for Oscar winners Cloris Leachman (“The Last Picture Show”) and Olympia Dukakis (“Moonstruck”) who shot their performances in the middle of the pandemic. It also includes Academy Award winners Tatum O’Neal (“Paper Moon”), Louis Gossett Jr. (“An Officer and a Gentleman”) and George Chakiris (“West Side Story”).
But the two true stars are Tate Dewey and Karen Grassle, who are certainly unknowns compared to the other award-winners. Tate plays a bratty troubled kid named Chris, who is a charming con artist already in trouble with the law after his mother was killed in a car accident and his father disappeared.
Chris is sentenced by a judge (played by Olympia Dukakis) to spend four weeks at his grandmother’s farm in a rural part of Kentucky. His grandmother is played by Karen Grassle, a subtle performance that shows the painful and heart-wrenching decline of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Chris tries to conform to the rules of the farm, especially under the tutelage of a mysterious ranch hand who has taken over, named Joe (played by Kevin Hardesty). Chris doesn’t like Joe and doesn’t trust him, thinking that he is trying to inherit his grandmother’s large property.
But Chris is realizing that his grandmother is rich, so he already develops a scam with his friends to become a co-signer on his grandmother’s accounts and steal it all for himself. He even goes so far as to pose as Jesus in a hysterically funny moment to fool his grandmother, and he does this after consulting with the local preacher (played by Gossett) for proper Bible verses to quote.
So while he tries to scam his grandmother, Chris and his friends are also investigating Joe and find out some fascinating background information on him and why he is trying to take over the grandmother’s farm.
Director and writer Valerio Zanoli became intrigued with how the disease of dementia hits someone every 65 seconds, and he said that he wanted to make a meaningful film about it. That’s how he talked so many of the A-listers into taking part in the project.
“From the beginning, I wanted to create a different kind of ‘Alzheimer’s film,’” says the director. “I was determined to make a film with the right compromise of light situations and dramatic moments. Instead of focusing on an elderly person, I decided to take the perspective of a young caregiver. So, I wrote the story of a millennial who doesn’t know anything about Alzheimer’s and finds himself taking care of Grandma. In the movie, Grandma forgets names and events, but she remembers love. On the contrary, her grandson and caregiver Chris remembers everything (to the point he made a “career” out of counting cards)… but he forgot the value and importance of family.”
Statistics haunt Zanoli. One-third of Alzheimer’s cases may be preventable by addressing lifestyle factors, he notes. Dementia affects approximately 50 million people around the world, with nearly 10 million new patients every year. There are 6 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s. There are 11.2 million Americans providing unpaid care to someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia.
Tate Dewey is a remarkable young actor who looks like River Phoenix. He portrays an angry young man, with a rebellious streak, who will shock the small town by walking down the deserted streets with no shirt on, and battling against any form of authority.
Already this movie is awarded 31 honors for Best Acting, Best Directing, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Film, Music, Drama, and more from film festivals around the world including Singapore, Tokyo, San Diego, New York, Amsterdam and more.
The authenticity of the story and the portrayal of the illness were created after Zanoli consulted with both Alzheimer patients and caregivers to read the screenplay and give him feedback.
“They provided invaluable feedback,” the director and writer said. “I wanted the story to embrace the perspective of a young caregiver rather than the one of an elderly patient. It was a way to reach a wider audience and make everyone aware of how urgent the fight against Alzheimer’s is.”
Indeed, it is a success.
(Not to Forget is available on Video On Demand platforms such as Amazon Prime, Google Play, Apple TV, DirecTV and more.)
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