Review: Love and Grace Fill the Spaces Of BROKEN MEMORIES

In the space between the yesterdays and todays of our lives, moments are stored that await recollection. We may by choice sift through that space from time to time to ferret out and reconstruct the sounds and smells of personal meaning. Or, it may be, as is the case with many who travel into the dark night of Alzheimer's, that the fragments of the past come and go, shine and fade, and tease the mind with images of a once whole tapestry of life.

BROKEN MEMORIES, an independent film based on a story by Frankie Lauderdale and directed by Michael Worth, is a poignant portrait of a man and his son navigating the transition to Alzheimer's.

On a farm nestled in the stunning visual landscape of Ventura County, Levi Jeffries (Ivan Sergei) is caretaker for Jasper (Rance Howard), his 79 year old father, despite their years of estrangement. It is an act of both love and personal sacrifice that reveals how daunting and consuming the role of caretaker for a loved one can be. And Sergei steers his role as the loving and encumbered son with palpable intensity through the inevitable range of emotions and ambivalence that comes with the responsibility.

However, keeping track of Jasper, who has an unyielding impulse to wander, is a task in itself, enough so that Levi retains a live-in helper named Maggie (Kelly Greyson) whom Jasper identifies as his deceased wife Lydia, the love of his life. If Jasper is quixotic in his errant journey to new meaning, Maggie becomes his Dulcinea, accepting the confusion, granting the old man serenity, exemplifying saintly patience, and ultimately serving as a linchpin to reconnect father and son.

Maggie, living with Jasper and Levi is a strategic retreat from a broken marriage and the relentless pursuit of her husband Buck, menacingly play by director Worth. This parallel plot has an arc of its own that results in a tumultuous and violent climax.

At the heart of this film is Rance Howard's doleful portrayal of Jasper, a performance that is riveting and tenderly transmitted. Bearing a weathered countenance with a mournful and penetrating gaze, Howard powerfully sculpts Jasper as a man who has loved and lost and who may have tended his fields with greater care than he rendered to his children. (We see the consequences of this inattention in the dysfunction that reigns between Levi and his sister (Cerina Vincent) whose interest seems to lie more in acquiring the tangible assets of a broken family.)

As Jasper reflects within and without, it is the questions that he asks Levi that in the end are provocative and compel the audience to contemplate the essence of life and what it is, as we age, that defines us. "Are we who we are because of what we remember?" "Are we just made up of memories we hold on to?" "What is tougher, doing the dying or being left behind?"

Hard questions, for sure, but for which the answers require the patience of a man fly fishing in the deep waters of his soul. BROKEN MEMORIES gives us the reel to cast about for our own answers while vividly reflecting the struggles that attend our passages from one phase of life to another.

BROKEN MEMORIES received two major IndieFEST Film Awards in 2016 ~ the Award of Merit with Special Mention and the Award of Excellence, Leading Actor for Rance Howard for his portrayal of Jasper ~ and is scheduled to be one of the featured films in the 2017 Sedona International Film Festival, February 18th through the 26th.

Photo credit to BROKEN MEMORIES LLC