Diminished Capacity (2008)

Diminished Capacity: Directed by Terry Kinney. With Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen, Alan Alda, Jimmy Bennett. A Chicago journalist suffering from memory loss takes leaves from his job and returns to his rural hometown, where he bonds with his Alzheimer’s-impaired uncle Rollie and his old flame.

“Essentially you have here a u0026quot;Bu0026quot; list cast of actors (Matthew Broderick, Virginia Madsen and Alan Alda) – none megastars, but all solid actors – who, as you would expect, put on decent enough performances. The problem with the movie is a story that misses its potential. I acknowledge that I havenu0026#39;t read the book. Maybe this worked better on paper, but on screen this was lacking.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBroderick played Cooper, an editor for a Chicago newspaper who suffers a head injury, and then is called away himself to help care for his uncle (Alan Alda) whou0026#39;s in the early stages of dementia. Madsen is some type of old flame for Cooper with whom he reconnects in his hometown. All three were fine in their roles but this movie had basically two directions in which it could have gone, did a little bit of both and, ultimately, because it had no focus on either, was a disappointment.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis could have been successful as a light-hearted comedy; a humorous look at dealing with the problems of dementia. Alda captured that well; he was believable as a dementia victim, and there were things like his fish-writing obsession that could have made this touchingly funny, but those moments were few and far between. Or, this could have gone the route of emotional drama, as we watch Aldau0026#39;s character of Rollie (and those around him) deal with his decline, but again those moments were few and far between. There was a moment when I thought the movie had made a choice – the very powerful scene when Rollie is missing and Cooper finds him in anguish in the bathroom at the card show; lost, confused and embarrassed at whatu0026#39;s happened. But that moment also gets lost. Instead of that, the story focuses for some reason on the old baseball card – a 1909 Cubs card that Rollieu0026#39;s grandfather gave him as a keepsake and that he now wants to sell. Even that could have been touching enough, but the card ends up being used primarily as a prop for staging slapstick humour, especially the ridiculous u0026quot;fightu0026quot; scene at the end of the movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAlso burdened with unnecessary characters (especially Donny, but even Madsenu0026#39;s Charlotte to an extent) this was really a disappointment. 3/10”