I just saw a wonderful film about dementia and more by Florian Zeller: ‘THE FATHER’ with Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman and other exceptional actors. Hopkins plays a man experiencing dementia. Colman plays his daughter experiencing the stress and distress associated with her dad’s condition. I won’t spoil it by giving any more detail but I recommend it for everybody who has (or hasn’t!) any involvement with the scourge of dementia. Among many other things, the film raises issues about communicating ‘the truth’ to a person with dementia (see my earlier blog about telling ‘fibs’ to a person with dementia). But it raises many more issues including communicating and relating to someone with dementia, appreciating the experience of dementia from the inside, and the difficulties of avoiding potentially damaging, invalidating, patronising attitudes and responses to someone experiencing dementia. Just one example shown in the film is the silly embarrassed smile or laugh we all can so easily display when confronted with a person saying or doing something obviously illogical and nonsensical. Benjamin Lee in The Guardian wrote of watching this man ‘try to rationally explain to himself and those around him what he’s experiencing’ as dementia gnaws away at his brain functions. The trailer does not (is unable) to convey the depth and sensitivity of this film. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+father+anthony+hopkins&view=detail&mid=8DCBB54B821066C19D588DCBB54B821066C19D58&FORM=VIRE0&mmscn=tpvh&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dthe%2bfather%2banthony%2bhopkins%26cvid%3da58d63a974014ab98e53ee8fc342d25e%26aqs%3dedge.0.0l7.14150j0j1%26pglt%3d299%26FORM%3dANSPA1%26PC%3dLCTS