Alzheimer's

Amr Arafa's 2010 Egyptian film is one of Adel Emam's late works and tries to hold comedy and family drama in the same frame. The wealthy businessman Mahmoud Shuaib is diagnosed with Alzheimer's; when he starts making unusual financial decisions, his two sons go to court to gain control of his estate and protect their inheritance. The film's real subject is not the illness but the appetite it opens up inside a family. Emam repeats his familiar register, but here the familiarity works for the part: the audience's long acquaintance with him makes what the character loses more visible. The weakness is tonal balance; the switches between melodrama and comedy are abrupt and some resolutions come too easily. That Egyptian cinema took on ageing and inheritance this directly is still worth noting. Who it's for: viewers who follow mainstream Egyptian cinema and Adel Emam's filmography. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a truthful portrait of the medical and emotional reality of Alzheimer's, or made uncomfortable by comedy sitting beside a story of illness.