Analysis of the Film Overboard Representing Alzheimer’s Disease

The movie that we are going to discuss is “ Overboard 2018. ” This movie is about a single, working mother name Kate who holds down two jobs while studying to get a nursing degree and is in the midst of financial crisis. She met the man who is ruined and rich Mexican playboy called Leonardo. One day, Kate was hired to clean a luxury yacht that belong to Leonardo. After the day that they had a fight, Leonardo tumbles off the boat and awakens with no memory of his identity. The doctor analyse that he had a retrograde amnesia. Kate has known a news about him and try to confused amnesiac that they are married. Therefore, Kate is trying to payback him by being a fake wife and using him to do her house work. Leonardo Montenegro casted by Eugenio Derbez has taken the role as a descendant of a millionaire company.

On the way to San Francisco with his luxury yacht, in the middle of the night he felt of the yacht. The next morning, he woke up stranded at the beach and he could not remember anything except that he found himself there. Leonardo, then made his way confusingly to the town and found a chief officer that brought him to the hospital. The doctor analyze that Leonardo’s action is caused by acute trauma to the temporal lobe, retrograde amnesia. “He might get his memory back in a couple days or never all. The brain is a tricky thing”, said Dr. Fletcher. Emphasizing the viewpoint of the doctor to the psychological theories and concepts include acute trauma and retrograde amnesia. First of, acute trauma often occurs when there is an accident that affect physical or emotional safety. Common symptoms of acute trauma is suspiciousness or acting in a strange way, for example the scene where Leonardo ran naked around the streets and giving surrounding people the idea that he is a lunatic person. Irritation and confusion is another symptom which is illustrated in the scenery of Kate visiting Leonardo at the hospital claiming they are married together for fifteen years but Leonardo’s reaction was unbelievable according to Kate’s statement. Moving on to retrograde amnesia means losing memories and information learned in the past that can be recalled in a short or long period by seeing familiar things. For instance, during the time in hospital he was not able to remember about his background or anything in his life. However, at the end after he saw his family he could recall all the memories back. The artist and director view on this movie about retrograde amnesia is that this disorder issue could cause a people behavior and lifestyle change.

For example, Leonardo himself has change his lifestyle from extravagance to be thrifty. Moreover, Leonardo is a man who did not work at all has become a person who work hard for their family. Therefore, their views about this issue is that retrograde amnesia is just a forgetting the previous event but it did not affect their daily life. The theory or opinion that can relate to the artist’s perspective due to the fact that amnesia is very unreliable because it could be temporarily or permanent. Retrograde amnesia mostly affects declarative parts of the memory than the procedural memory. For example, Leonardo could not remember which type of sauce he used to make, but he still knew how to cook the spaghetti. As a result, the only hard part is accessing memories from before the onset of amnesia but they still remain their skill and habits. There are a lot of movies that related to retrograde amnesia such as “The Vow”, which was made based on true story of one young girl who forgot about her boyfriend and career after the accident. This story has a situation that familiar with “Overboard”. The main characters in these two movies forgot parts of their lives which was really important. But in the end of “The Vow”, the character could not recall her memories and had to live the rest of her life like that. According to the film, we can explain to ourselves about memory loss, that the brain is severely affected to be the Retrograde Amnesia. The Damage to brain structures that form the limbic system, which controls the emotions and memories. These structures include the thalamus, which lies deep within the center of the brain, and the hippocampus formations, which are situated within the temporal lobes of the brain. This will cause forgotten all events before the accident. But the loss of memory doesn’t mean that it is the Alzheimer's disease. Because we can live. The skills, decisions and behaviors that are normal. Only we lose only the long term memory before the accident. The retrograde amnesia doesn’t have directly curable. But the brain can recover its memory slowly. In the movie, it shows that in the last scene. When the actor who is in the retrograde amnesia meets his family, He can recover his memories.

So it can explain that the loss of memory can regain memory. If it is in a familiar environment. Another main issue exists in this movie is ethical issues arise toward Leonardo, a person with Retrograde Amnesia. This movie intends to show some of the situations which may arise in treating or caring a person with Retrograde Amnesia where a lie or deception is used by Kate, the main actress. By claiming that she is Leo’s wife and effort him to do house-work for her, get a job to support her family. She also avoid to tell Leo the truth about his real life and even coercing her children to be liar too. People may say that some lies are used because of caring but some are to take advantages on person with Alzheimer or Retrograde Amnesia. People say everything has two sides, so does Retrograde Amnesia. Even if it is a form of Alzheimer’s which known as a disease. A disease might sound scary and sad for many people but on the other hand people could see it in a different side of perspective. For example, having Retrograde Amnesia could shape people personality which could be either worse or better. As mentioned before, this disorder issue could cause a people behavior and lifestyle change. For example, Leonardo himself has change his lifestyle after he had Retrograde Amnesia. Kate has shaped his new lifestyle and behavior from extravagance to be thrifty guy by telling him what to do which are things that he had never done before. It can be said that he was kind of opened his mind to learn to generate new skills because he thought that he used to do it before. However, by shaping him new personality Kate decided to tell Leonardo a big lie. This shows that a person who have Retrograde Amnesia are having a higher chance to be cheated on or someone could have taken advantage from him easier than normal people.

To conclude, Overboard 2018 is one of a good film representing Alzheimer’s disease in a form of Retrograde Amnesia. The stage of causing, treatment, and recovering of the disease are clearly illustrated in the film. This film represents a story in many dimensions, Family, Ethic, Disease, Love, Friendship, Different lifestyle between Richness, and Poverty etc. Making the movie itself outstanding and interesting.