Introduction
Severe illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease, often appear in various literary works, movies, and other art forms. An example of such a work is the short story “The bear came over the mountain” written by Alice Munro and published in The New Yorker journal. The story is about a married couple – Fiona and Grant, who at some point confront the disease as they understand that Fiona suffers from it. Munro’s work became a background for the movie “Away from Her,” directed by Sarah Polly, depicting the events from the original story. However, it is questionable whether the film has successfully told the same story in a visual form. Thus, the purpose of this essay is to evaluate both works and explore whether the film accurately portrays the events described in the story and whether they both accurately portray Alzheimer’s disease. The film is an accurate depiction of the original story because it contains every significant element of the literary work, but both works do not accurately portray Alzheimer’s as they are not primarily about the disease.
Establishing the Criteria
First, it is crucial to establish what makes the short story successful since it is the source material for this essay. The story has a highly controversial and twisted plot, primarily because of the relationships between the four main characters – Fiona, Grant, Aubrey, and Marian. Once Fiona gets into a nursing home where her Alzheimer’s disease is supposed to be treated, she forgets Grant and her love for him and engages in a flirtation with another patient, Aubrey (Munro, 2013). After Grant visits Fiona for the first time and meets Aubrey, he realizes that his wife does not remember him and treats him “with a distracted, social sort of kindness” (Munro, 2013, para. 82). That makes Grant think much and reflect on their marriage while remembering his affairs with other women, for which Fiona has forgiven him (Munro, 2013). The situation becomes highly complex because Grant’s love for Fiona is tested as he now has to take care of his diseased wife while also dealing with the fact that she has completely forgotten him.
Depiction of the Story’s Events in the Film
The character and plot complications described in the previous section prove that it is challenging to create a film representing the essence of this dramatic story. However, the movie under discussion depicts the story’s events with high accuracy, conveying all the significant elements. These include occasions of Grant’s infidelity and Fiona’s forgiveness, Grant’s struggle to take care of his wife, simultaneously watching her flirting with Aubrey (Egoyan et al., 2006). At some point, Grant starts to wonder whether everything described above is a punishment for his former deeds during the marriage, and that is the most significant moment in the written story and the movie. As said in the original story, Grant married Fiona because he “wanted never to be away from her” (Munro, 2013, para. 3). Thus, even the name of the movie, along with the film itself, accurately illustrates Grant’s drama as he now feels as far away from Fiona as possible, although he remains her actual husband.
The following “phase” of the story begins with Fiona’s deterioration when Aubrey’s wife, Marian, takes him home from the clinic, and that is the part where Grant has to make a hard decision. Grant goes to Aubrey and Marian’s house, where he meets Marian and asks her to bring Aubrey to the clinic sometimes so he and Fiona can see each other (Munro, 2013; Egoyan et al., 2006). A complex decision-making process precedes such an action because it is not easy to arrange meetings for one’s wife and her lover on purpose. However, Grant still does that out of his love for Fiona when he realizes that if people are “deprived of seeing somebody they care about, they do feel sad” (Munro, 2013, para. 136). That decision is a highly significant element of the original story because it illustrates the author’s vision of love and its power, which is accurately depicted in the film.
Portraying Alzheimer’s in the Story and the Film
Although the events of the original story occur in the setting of Alzheimer’s disease, it is controversial whether the illness is accurately portrayed in the short story and the film. It cannot and should not be accurately portrayed in “The bear came over the mountain” because the story is not about the illness. As it is known, Alzheimer’s is a highly complex neurodegenerative disease with many various symptoms that can significantly differ among patients. Therefore, an accurate depiction of such a complicated illness in an artwork is almost impossible. In the text of Munro’s work, the word “Alzheimer,” as well as such words as “disease” or “illness,” are not even used once throughout the entire story (Munro, 2013). Instead of those words, Munro (2013) uses softer constructions when describing Fiona’s condition, such as “so much the matter with her” (para. 31). The reason for that is the absence of necessity to concentrate on Alzheimer’s disease in the written story or the movie.
In “The bear came over the mountain,” Munro uses Alzheimer only as a method of complicating the drama within the story, and the illness is not a primary aspect of the narration. Fiona’s disease is just one of many “components” that shape the described period of Grant’s life, making the man “feel hopeless, exasperated, finally almost desolate” (Munro, 2013, para. 201). The same can be traced in the movie: though Alzheimer’s might be better portrayed here due to the visual image, the disease is still not what the work is about entirely (Egoyan et al., 2006). The original written story and the movie show readers and viewers a man who struggles and makes efforts to give “appropriate love” to his wife in a challenging situation. Therefore, Alzheimer’s disease is not (and should not be) accurately portrayed in the narration and movie because it is not the primary goal of the works under discussion.
Conclusion
Overall, the movie under discussion has succeeded in representing the written story accurately, yet Alzheimer’s disease is not portrayed accurately because both works under discussion are not primarily about the illness. There are many significant elements in “The bear came over the mountain” that represent the essence of the story, and those elements are accurately depicted in the movie. These elements include Fiona’s memory loss, Grant’s former infidelity, his readiness to do whatever it takes to make his wife happy, even help her see another man with whom she has fallen in love. That said, Alzheimer is not the main point of the story – it is only an instrument of complicating the situation for Grant, making him reflect on his marriage and putting his love to the test. The disease is not accurately portrayed in both the written story and the movies because the authors have not concentrated on Alzheimer’s. It is a story about love, its power, and the efforts required to be loving and loved.
References
Egoyan, A. Hirst, V., Iron, D. Mankoff, D. Urd, S. Weiss, J. (Producers), & Polley, S. (Director). (2006). Away from her. [Motion picture]. Canada: Foundry Film.
Munro, A. (2013). The bear came over the mountain. The New Yorker. Web.