JUNE AGAIN
****
Director: JJ Winlove
Screenplay: JJ Winlove
Principal cast:
Noni Hazlehurst
Claudia Karvan
Stephen Curry
Nash Edgerton
Pip Edwards
Darren Gilshenan
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 99 mins.
Australian release date: 6 May 2021.
Recent releases Supernova and The Father both dealt with varying aspects of Alzheimer’s disease and now, as if to complete a triumvirate, along comes Australian movie June Again, the feature debut of New Zealand director/writer JJ Winlove. His screenplay about a woman with a form of vascular dementia reveals the sad fact that sufferers of this insidious illness can experience a momentary reprieve where their lucidity returns for a time, although no-one can foretell just how long this clear-mindedness will last before the fog of forgetfulness returns.
June (Noni Hazlehurst) is a woman in her late 60s who has been in care for the past five years after a series of strokes left her confused and unable to remember her loved ones. In early scenes we bear witness to her poor memory when she doesn’t recognise familiar objects and confuses the caring staff with members of her family. Then one morning, entirely unexpectedly, she completes a crossword in short order, is able to name her relatives in a group photograph and can’t understand why she is cooped up in an aged-care home - in other words, the June of old has returned. In the clarity of the moment, she hightails it out of the institution and hails a cab to take her back to her family home, only to find nothing is as she remembers it. Much has changed in the five years she’s been ‘away’; for one thing, her daughter Ginny (Claudia Karvan) and son Devon (Stephen Curry) have fallen out and are no longer speaking to each other. June is a determined, forthright woman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, so she endeavours to sort out her children’s various messes, however, she soon learns that her return is met with as much resentment as happiness. Can she put things right before the curtain descends once more?
Hazlehurst gives one of her finest performances as she is transformed from June’s blank, bewildered state back into the ‘real’ world. Her face is a billboard of varying reactions as she comes to understand that there are some things in life you can change and some that you must learn to live with. Karvan and Curry are also pitch-perfect as the warring siblings who, underneath, still have a bond of familial camaraderie as they begin to adjust to the new/old June and rediscover their affection for one another. It’s a shame that these three outstanding actors do most of their work on television nowadays - we should see them on our cinema screens more regularly. Winlove’s carefully researched screenplay could have become a real hug fest but he keeps the emotion in check, never wallowing in sentimentality for its own sake (which is not to say that you shouldn’t have a couple of tissues handy). It’s also quite funny at times. The idea came to him, he says, because he has always been intrigued by how memories define us: “I've always been interested in memory - the power of memory and nostalgia - and how much of our lives we live through our memories. I wondered what we’d be like if we lost our memory, and how lost we'd be without it.”
June Again is a surprising domestic dramedy given that it deals with the grim topic of dementia. It shows, as did Supernova and The Father, that it takes a lot of love and sacrifice to cope with such a tragic ailment. It will provoke tears in the dark but it will also give you a laugh and a sense of hope.
Screenplay: JJ Winlove
Principal cast:
Noni Hazlehurst
Claudia Karvan
Stephen Curry
Nash Edgerton
Pip Edwards
Darren Gilshenan
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 99 mins.
Australian release date: 6 May 2021.
Recent releases Supernova and The Father both dealt with varying aspects of Alzheimer’s disease and now, as if to complete a triumvirate, along comes Australian movie June Again, the feature debut of New Zealand director/writer JJ Winlove. His screenplay about a woman with a form of vascular dementia reveals the sad fact that sufferers of this insidious illness can experience a momentary reprieve where their lucidity returns for a time, although no-one can foretell just how long this clear-mindedness will last before the fog of forgetfulness returns.
June (Noni Hazlehurst) is a woman in her late 60s who has been in care for the past five years after a series of strokes left her confused and unable to remember her loved ones. In early scenes we bear witness to her poor memory when she doesn’t recognise familiar objects and confuses the caring staff with members of her family. Then one morning, entirely unexpectedly, she completes a crossword in short order, is able to name her relatives in a group photograph and can’t understand why she is cooped up in an aged-care home - in other words, the June of old has returned. In the clarity of the moment, she hightails it out of the institution and hails a cab to take her back to her family home, only to find nothing is as she remembers it. Much has changed in the five years she’s been ‘away’; for one thing, her daughter Ginny (Claudia Karvan) and son Devon (Stephen Curry) have fallen out and are no longer speaking to each other. June is a determined, forthright woman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, so she endeavours to sort out her children’s various messes, however, she soon learns that her return is met with as much resentment as happiness. Can she put things right before the curtain descends once more?
Hazlehurst gives one of her finest performances as she is transformed from June’s blank, bewildered state back into the ‘real’ world. Her face is a billboard of varying reactions as she comes to understand that there are some things in life you can change and some that you must learn to live with. Karvan and Curry are also pitch-perfect as the warring siblings who, underneath, still have a bond of familial camaraderie as they begin to adjust to the new/old June and rediscover their affection for one another. It’s a shame that these three outstanding actors do most of their work on television nowadays - we should see them on our cinema screens more regularly. Winlove’s carefully researched screenplay could have become a real hug fest but he keeps the emotion in check, never wallowing in sentimentality for its own sake (which is not to say that you shouldn’t have a couple of tissues handy). It’s also quite funny at times. The idea came to him, he says, because he has always been intrigued by how memories define us: “I've always been interested in memory - the power of memory and nostalgia - and how much of our lives we live through our memories. I wondered what we’d be like if we lost our memory, and how lost we'd be without it.”
June Again is a surprising domestic dramedy given that it deals with the grim topic of dementia. It shows, as did Supernova and The Father, that it takes a lot of love and sacrifice to cope with such a tragic ailment. It will provoke tears in the dark but it will also give you a laugh and a sense of hope.