Affection

Bluesky

The opening scene of BT Meza’s Affection will hit hard for some viewers. Though few will have gone through similar experiences in quite such scary circumstances – getting caught up in a car accident, fleeing from an unknown terror, then waking up in a bed next to a stranger – many will have loved ones who have been frightened by ordinary things due to the loss of memory. The most common cause of this is Alzheimer’s disease and the similar afflictions which often strike in later life, but it can also occur for other reasons.

This is not the first setback that she (Jessica Rothe) has had since her accident, says the stranger (Joseph Cross) when he has succeeded in calming her down. According to the specialist, she’ll recover her memories again with time. She just needs to be patient, to take it easy. That’s why they came out here to this house in the middle of nowhere, the two of them and little Alice (Julianna Layne). It’s Alice, of course, who reassures her. There’s not a hint of hesitation or dissemblance in her. She’s frightened when this happens to Mommy, but she loves her, and it doesn’t take long before they are restoring their bond with games, with affection. So why can’t the woman shake her conviction that she’s mother to a boy?

People with damaged memories often experience confabulation – that is, their brains try to fill in the gaps in what they know, creating imaginary memories which seem as real as any others. This, she’s told, is why she struggles to get back to her normal life as Ellie – why she’s convinced that her name is Sarah Thompson, that she comes from Maine and has a degree in Computer Science for Colombia. It’s all so detailed. What will happen to it when she gets better? Will be people in the world she remembers now – people she loves – disappear? No, he reassures her. They’ll still be there in her mind – she’ll just be able to recognise them as fiction. She will once again be comfortably able to recognise her own face.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to explore here and it’s a shame that we don’t get into it in more depth, but this is a Frightfest selection, and Meza is keen to get on with the action. Further indications of a brain injury emerge in the form of disturbing hallucinations – if that’s what they really are – and when she gets emotional, trying to argue with him, she suffers from a fit. She’s glad, then, to have him to hold onto, to be cared for. She tells him that she’s frightened, not knowing who she is. “You’re my wife,” he tells her, as if that’s identity enough.

Alice has nightmares. “It was trying to get me,” she says. “It was a monster. It was like me but it wasn’t me.”

There are interesting ideas underlying all this. It’s unfortunate that some of them are very close to those in another film which came out in 2025, diluting their impact. There are also gaps in them, and vagueries which are not really excusable simply on the basis of the amnesia. One of the central performances is emotionally restrained for a reason, but it’s still frstrating, giving viewers less to hold onto. Meza handles the basic structures of the thriller well enough, however, so we still get some excitement. Overall, the production design is just a little too slick, and the film as a whole would have benefited from more rough edges to generate friction. Not knowing what has happened in the past is less affecting when one can all too easily figure out what’s going to happen next.

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