Fifty First Dates is one of my all time favorite Adam Sandler movies. In this movie, the main actress (Drew Barrymore), was involved in a bad car accident where she isn't able to make new long term memories. Adam Sandler falls in love with her and works every day to try to get her to fall in love with him, but it's a challenge since each morning she wakes up and has no idea who he is. He work on it by making videos for her and constantly visiting her hoping she'll start to remember.
This may not be the most accurate portrayal of how memory loss happens. I'm sure it depends on the nature of the accident. In this case, Drew Barrymore remembers everything up to the crash, but nothing after the fact. I think if we were to look at how it happens naturally (with diseases such as Alzheimers), we would see that it is a much more gradual experience, and people start to forget more and more things as time goes on. One aspect from the movie that doesn't seem to make much sense is the regularity of when she forgets everything. In the movie, she forgets everything as she sleeps, so you can predict whether or not she's going to remember you. In real life, it's much more complicated than that, and people forget things over longer and shorter periods of time (partially depending on how important the matter was to the individual).
This is just a simple illustration of how Drew Barrymore felt in the movie when she woke up with a strange man (Adam Sandler) in her bed in the morning. Obviously her reaction was a bit more dramatic as the circumstances were a slightly different
(Adorable comic) I also have a love for that movie. Although I do realize that the movie makes the situation seem easier to handle than it most likely is in real life, I still hope that those with AD are able to remember previous experiences after watching videos of the events. I wonder, if a person with AD's family made video documentaries for them to watch every morning, would they actually remember experiencing the event and possibly after some years, be able to build their memory back up and in a way, "heal" themselves of AD...
I think that often the movie industry doesn't quite get all of their facts straight before releasing a production. Technically, Drew Barrymore's memory lapses could be due to amnesia or destruction of part of her brain or brainstem from the car accident. The fact that remembers everything up to the crash indicates she may have anterograde amnesia but the fact that she forgets as she sleeps doesn't match either description of anterograde or retrograde amnesia.
I also thought about this movie when reading about amnesia. It's a great movie with an interesting plot, but I don't think it really sticks to the truth about amnesia. I would agree that the fact that she keeps losing her memories as she sleeps is not exactly congruent with what actually happens with amnesia. Memory loss is a popular topic in a lot of Hollywood movies though!
I like that you related some of the affects that happen in real life to the movie itself. Although some facts in the movie may be real, the majority and severity of it may not be common. The movie industry strives for entertainment and I think thats exactly what they did in this movie. Over-exaggerating is common in many movies and I think this is just another case. It does bring up some relevant points though.