As a gamer with a keen interest in psychology and neurology, I found the movie “50 First Dates” to be a fascinating exploration of memory and its intricacies. Growing up, I was always fascinated by the mysteries of the human mind, and this film only fueled that curiosity.
As I dive into the 2004 romantic comedy “50 First Dates” (currently streaming on Peacock), I find myself initially unimpressed by Adam Sandler’s character, Henry Roth. He’s a carefree ladies’ man who spends his days showing affection to animals at Sea Life Park Hawaii (a surprisingly adorable setting) and his nights wooing tourists for a quick fling that lasts only a week or two before he sends them packing, ready for the next conquest.
His only real ambition is a research trip on his sailboat, but it’s a piece of garbage hung together with chewing gum and duct tape, which is how he ends up stranded just offshore of a local diner. Inside, he has a meet cute with Lucy (Drew Barrymore) over the nostalgic smell of fish, the mysterious lives of walruses, and the art of waffle architecture.
Lucy adheres to a fixed daily schedule not out of preference, but due to a traumatic brain injury she suffered a year ago that causes her to live the same day repeatedly. Every day, she visits the same diner because it’s where she had breakfast on Sundays (the day of her accident), and she reads an identical newspaper that her father arranges for her each evening.
Each morning, I create a fresh masterpiece for my dad’s birthday, only to find it gone by nightfall as he paints over it, offering me a pristine canvas for the next day. It mirrors the cycle inside my mind, where every night, my memories are wiped clean while I sleep, and I awake with a blank mental canvas ready for new creations.
For More on Memory
1. The flaw of human forgetfulness may actually be considered as a built-in characteristic rather than an error.
The Real-Life Inspiration Behind 50 First Dates
In a car accident involving a wandering cow, Lucy sustained an injury to her temporal lobe which affected her capability to turn short-term memories into long-term ones. This narrative element was based on the true story of Michelle Philpots, a resident from Lincolnshire, England. Philpots experienced two serious car accidents in 1985 and 1990. The subsequent blows to the head led to worsening seizures and memory loss over the following four years.
In time, due to repeatedly photocopying the same document without realizing it, Philpots ended up losing her job. Later on, she developed a condition that caused her to lose all ability to create new memories. Every morning, she feels as if it’s 1994. An operation in 2005 significantly reduced her seizures, but her memory remains like a constantly erased whiteboard.
According to neuroscientist Dr. Peter Nestor, as reported in The Daily Mail, this specific type of anterograde amnesia is not extremely common, but it does occur. People with this condition can perform daily tasks and retain skills like speaking, but they would be unable to recall what they did the day before.
In the movie, Lucy’s father and brother constantly conceal from her the truth about past events, maintaining a constant loop where she remains blissfully unaware yet stuck in the same happy, unchanging situation. This deception isn’t sustainable forever, so Harry begins thinking of alternatives. Harry provides Lucy with a recording filling her in on what she has missed and describing the accident. Additionally, he gives her a journal detailing her life from her own perspective, enabling Lucy to understand and adapt to the world around her.
Unlike Lucy and Harry, Philipots and her spouse were a couple before her memory loss, but he still needs to show their wedding album to confirm their decades-long marriage. He assists in keeping her grounded in the present by supplementing her memory with his own experiences, while she relies on sticky notes and smartphone reminders for everything else. These reminders serve a similar purpose as Lucy’s tapes and diary.
Examples such as the Philpotts case and the imaginary character Lucy underscore the vast amount we yet have to discover regarding the creation and preservation of memories. Moreover, these instances emphasize how humans often respond with a blend of empathy and ingenuity to forge novel paths within society for those they care about deeply.
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2024-08-27 21:46