If You’re Not You, who are you?
The film You’re Not You is an emotional movie about a patient with ALS. The main character who we see live with ALS is Kate who is played by Hilary Swank. In the film, it shows how her life flipped upside down. She used to be a pianist with many CDs who loved to cook and do everything for her husband but once she got sick she could barely even walk. It is now her husbands turn to do everything for her. Although, the question remains, will he stay loyal?
Honestly, I did not believe there to be much acting in his role for the majority of the movie.
In this film, one has to give a lot of credit to Hilary Swank because of how well she played the role of a patient with ALS. There are certain scenes throughout the film in which the main focus is the effects of the disease. For example, the scene where she is walking towards the stairs an they show a close up of her foot with her toes scrunched is a deliberate demonstration of her disease. This method of close ups on her body is meant to give the audience a sense of what the disease does to one. Another scene where this is the main focus is when they are at a Christmas party where Kate is alone with her mother. Since she seems to be a person very focused on looks, she decides to open Kate's hand and extend her fingers (ALS causes hands to be closed or appear to be making a loose fist).
There are a couple big name actors in the film besides Hilary Swank such as Josh Duhamel and Emmy Rossum. Evan, Kate’s husband is played by Duhamel. Honestly, I did not believe there to be much acting in his role for the majority of the movie. There was not any scene where I thought it was exceptional acting, Duhamel seemed to simply be going through the motions with no passion behind it. It would be comparable to how people believe Kristen Stewart’s acting to be: stiff. Overall his acting abilities were mediocre at best. Rossum’s character was a college girl named Bec. She on the other hand put a lot of emotion into the role. This is very obvious and can be seen several times through out the film. It is more clearly demonstrated in the second half of the film where her character has begun to care for Swank’s character Kate. Any scene in which Kate is having a problem due to the ALS Rossum responds with what one would consider to be an almost genuine reaction as if it were actually happening.
If one wants to watch an emotional movie about someone battling ALS this is a good movie but if they’re expecting the film to be a tearjerker this is not what I would recommend. I think the film does a very good job of showing the life of a person living with ALS because it shows again and again how having a disease can sometimes change relationships, whether the person held them prior to being diagnosed (even if they are meant to “last forever”) or simply with how people interact with them. I believe this movie is a good portrayal of someone’s everyday when living with ALS (sans relationship problems). The film Concussion is similar to this one as they are both about dealing with a health problems but Concussion goes more along the medical route than the day to day of a patient. Although if you want to watch a more interesting film in the same genre I would recommend the film Concussion over You’re Not You.
