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The Vow

1/2/2013

12 Comments

 
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A new bride suffers retrograde amnesia after a traumatic brain injury and loses the memory of ever having met her husband in this romantic drama based on actual events.

Paige suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident that results in retrograde amnesia. She awakens in a hospital room having lost several years of her life, and the memory of ever having met Leo and marrying him. Leo attempts to remind Paige of their relationship and reclaim their life prior to the car accident. Although Paige never regains her memory, she discovers facts of her past that lead her back to her life prior to the accident. The movie is based on the actual story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter.

Neuropsychological Review
Ashley McIntyre, Lona Wang, Melanie Musso, & Hela Saidi with Mary Spiers

When considering whether The Vow accurately portrays a case of retrograde amnesia, the answer is both yes and no.  This movie is based on real-life events, (the story of Krickett Carpenter) so the loss of memory for events prior to a brain injury (i.e. retrograde amnesia), even for a long period of time, can happen.  However...

retrograde amnesia after traumatic brain injury (TBI) usually results in a loss of memories for events that are temporally graded, where remote memories are more accessible than events right before the trauma (Mastin, 2010).  Anterograde amnesia, or the inability to learn new information after the event, however, is a more common effect from a traumatic brain injury (Zillmer, Spiers, & Culbertson, 2008) and this was not seen in the film.  Procedural memories are typically not affected at all in an event like this (Mastin, 2010), which the movie shows correctly, as Paige has no problem knowing how to perform actions she had previously known how to do, like riding a bike

In Paige’s case, she loses all memories of events for approximately five years prior to the accident. She doesn’t remember becoming an artist, meeting or marrying Leo. In trying to piece her life back together after the accident, the last thing she remembers before everything goes blank is ordering toasted ravioli at a restaurant.  In The Vow there is a complete cutoff; this is the last thing she remembers. There are no fuzzy “islands of memory” for any time in between that would often be expected in actual TBI. She remembers all events of her life up to a certain point but never regains anything that happened afterwards.  

While aspects of the movie are accurate in portraying retrograde amnesia, the main way it is not accurate in portraying a true case of TBI, is the injury’s effect on Paige.  The movie downplays the severity of the behavioral effects that traumatic brain injury would have on a person.  At first when Paige wakes up after her calamity, she reverts back to how she was five years prior, when she was still in law school and dating someone else (Jeremy).  In this story, Paige does learn that she wants to be an artist and eventually leaves Jeremy again and goes back to Leo.  In actual TBI, this is less believable. Unlike Paige’s case in this movie, one usually doesn’t regain their former personality.  Also, Paige’s coma was slightly mentioned in the movie, but it was portrayed like it only occurred for a few days. Either the movie “skipped to the chase” or it showed that Paige was only in the coma for only a few days. She did not slowly come out of her coma as in real cases of comas; however, she just suddenly “woke up.”  After waking up from her coma, Paige remarkably has no bandages or scars considering she just recently went through the windshield of a car.

One thing to be commended about this film is its portrayal of the events and emotional distress that typically coincides with life after a severe TBI for both the patient and his or her family and friends. Some of these very emotional events portrayed in the film were Paige’s accident, her re-acquaintance with her forgotten husband, her return home to her family in order to escape her unfamiliar life with Leo, and Leo’s attempt to make Paige fall in love with him again. While the filmmakers did include a few new details to capture the audiences, all of these instances that occurred in the film did in fact occur in Kim and Krickett’s life. When the actual case was compared to the film, it was found that many of the symptoms and struggles that Paige faced coincided with what the Carpenters wrote in their book, The Vow: The True Events that Inspired the Movie. (2012). Kim Carpenter explains how Krickett and he could not return to the life they had beforehen Krickett returned home from the hospital she was a different person. He explains, “her mood swings were so wide and unpredictable. Unpredictable described our whole relationship” (Carpenter, 2012). Just as in the actual case, one of the main issues in the film was Leo’s difficulty coping with Paige’s constant mood swings, confusion, and struggle with her memory. However, one aspect of the actual case that the film failed to highlight was the difficulty Krickett had getting back to her usual level of functioning. In the book, Kim Carpenter explains that Krickett was required to see a neuropsychologist in order to relearn how to feed, dress, and bathe herself (Carpenter, 2012). According to the actual case, not only did Krickett’s retrograde amnesia cause her to forget eighteen months of her life, but she also suffered from Post-Traumatic Amnesia for four years after the accident (“The Carpenter’s Vow” 2012). Therefore, the film does seem to highlight the main issues that Krickett faced, but failed to capture the severity of Krickett’s (or Paige’s) circumstance.

The Vow is one of the only movies that attempts to show what retrograde amnesia can be like after a head injury.  Paige doesn’t totally “lose her identity” as in most popular portrayals of amnesia. She knows her name and remembers her early life and family.  However, The Vow still plays with the idea of identity since Paige loses her more recent identity as an artist and follows a quest to refind it.  Paige’s personality “recovery” doesn’t totally reflect what happened with Krickett Carpenter.  People with traumatic brain injury do not usually “lose” their personality and simply get it back a few years down the road.  Unfortunately, most individuals with severe TBI have to live with the effects of their brain injuries for the rest of their lives. The Vow interweaves Hollywood ideas of identity loss and happy endings with actual events that, although rare, can happen with TBI.

References

Carpenter, K., Carpenter, K., & Dana, W. (2012). The vow: The true events that inspired the
movie. Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group.

Mastin, Luke. "Anterograde Amnesia - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory."Anterograde
Amnesia - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory. N.p., 2010. Web. 09 Dec. 2012.

“The Carpenter’s Vow” (2012). Retrieved from http://thecarpentersvow.com/.

Zillmer, E. A. & Spiers, M. V, & Culbertson, W.C. (2008)  Principles of Neuropsychology (2nd ed.)   Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thompson Learning.

12 Comments
Taylor Garen
11/23/2013 01:43:05 am

I remember watching The Vow when it first came out in 2012 and how I thought of it as a romantic movie with heart-tugging drama. I found myself rooting for Paige and Leo, as most people would in a film such as this. Since taking a neuropsychology class, I can appreciate the movie on a whole other level. I can see the real-life symptoms of an individual who sustained a traumatic brain injury, how it affects their life, and how it affects the people around them.
In class, we covered the topic of amnesia extensively - focusing on both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. I agree with this group’s conclusion that Paige displays some accurate accounts of retrograde amnesia, meaning she cannot remember events occurring before the accident. For example, procedural memories, such as riding a bike, were kept intact as they would be in real life. However, when Paige wakes up from the coma, it is instantaneous and there is no sign that it was a slow process, which is much more likely in a real event. The movie does not specify how much time Paige spent in the coma, but the group mentions that she has no scars or bandages when she wakes up. Perhaps this is the director’s way of showing that her time spent in the coma was longer than the movie portrays, enough time for her external wounds to heal.
All in all, I agree with this analysis of the film and believe that the movie does display different aspects of retrograde amnesia, while some may be more glorified than others. This film was intended to be a romantic story, which it captures, and not a documentary about a real-life person living with amnesia so in that respect, I believe the movie fulfills its desired purpose.

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Jade link
10/10/2018 11:09:27 pm

I have a question... I'm 14,and I'm writing a book about a woman who has severe retrograde amnesia.. I want know if in some cases the patient can remember facts and general knowledge, but can't remember how he/she learnt it.

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Ann Smith
2/22/2014 06:20:17 am

Neuropsyfi Movie Review
This movie is far from the cookie cutter romantic movies one sees in theaters. In the movie, The Vow, Paige and Leo get into a car accident where Paige is not a wearing a seat belt and collides headfirst through the window shield. As a result Paige suffers from retrograde amnesia and loses several years of her life, including any memories of meeting Leo. The movie is a based on the true story of Kim Krickett Carpenter. In reality, the couple was struggling to work through their marriage, but Kim found it hard to adjust to living with a man she could not remember and dealt with quick-temperedness and mixed emotions. In an attempt to make their relationship work they started dating and creating new memories of their own. The story is an accurate depiction of retrograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is loss of memory of events and experiences occurring in a period of time prior to the amnesia-causing trauma. In Professor Spiers’s Psychology 101 class, there was a lecture given on memory recall and recognition. There were modules with given exercises on the processes of memory retention. Through the use of the given simulations students were able to reinforce lessons on learning and memory. Researchers consider retrograde amnesia to be a failure of the ability to retrieve or recall the information rather than total loss of that information. Overall, this movie was a valid showcase of retrograde amnesia.
Bibliography
• "Amnesia, Retrograde | The Penguin Dictionary Of ... - Credo Reference." Amnesia, Retrograde | The Penguin Dictionary Of ... - Credo Reference. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. <http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/penguinpsyc/amnesia_retrograde/0>.
• "Married to a Staranger." : People.com. N.p., 24 June 1996. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. <http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0%2C%2C20141613%2C00.html>.

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Nimra Aziz
3/7/2014 06:53:30 am

The Vow took a true story and formulated it into a typical romantic Hollywood chick flick. The movie focused on traumatic brain injury and memory loss that happens to some people after a traumatic accident. While there are two forms of memory loss, anterograde and retrograde, the movie essentially focuses on retrograded amnesia. This form of amnesia prevents an individual from accessing memories for scenarios that occurred before the injury. The areas affected by retrograde amnesia include the temporal lobes, hippocampus and diencephalon. According to an article by mayoclinic.org it is very possible for people to have false recollection and confuse actual memories with made up memories. This typically happens because people have a constant urge to find the missing pieces of their life puzzle.
Many times the period of “loss time” is short but for some cases such as the one depicted in the movie it can occur for a period longer than a year. The movie also lacks to show the potential damage a person endeavors when suffering from retrograde amnesia. A majority of the time a person losses who they are emotionally and behaviorally. In the movie Paige Collins loses touch with who she is but towards the end returns back to her old habits. She quits law school and moves to New York in order to pursue her dream of becoming an artist. As stated in the review on Neurpsyfi the director also fails to portrait fuzzy ”islands of memories,” which are short snippets of events that occurred prior to the accident that a person has forgotten.

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Ly Nguyen
2/18/2015 10:47:04 pm

This movie does not truly reflect the effects of a traumatic brain injury, from which the patient is unlikely to fully recover like the character Paige in the movie. Most of the time, such an accident will leave a permanent effect on the person's psychological functions and will greatly interfere with their daily activities. However, it still showcases the typical recovery process of someone that suffers from retrograde amnesia. Paige made an effort to relive her past experiences, and discover her own self from them with the help of her husband Leo. The movie aimed to demonstrate the power of love in healing physically and emotionally, and thus was still very meaningful and enjoyable.

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Manisha Bista
11/22/2015 08:55:37 pm

The Vow movie was based on a true story of a couple that wrote a book about their marriage. In the movie, Leo and Paige met a serious car accident where Paige suffered a traumatic brain injury, resulting in retrograde amnesia. Paige lost the memory of her entire relationship with Leo and upon waking up in the hospital she did not recognize her husband and was essentially living with a stranger.
The movie portrays the effect of retrograde amnesia accurately. Paige forgets the last few years of her life completely. However, Paige’s ability to create new memories wasn’t altered as well as her language abilities was unaffected. The only thing that was inaccurately presented in the movie was Paige seemed to fully recover to the person she was prior to the accident. She almost finds herself again and eventually recovers all the belief and the personality traits that she had lost from the accident. This is never the case in retrograde amnesia. People do not get back to the same way they were before because the experiences they feel is not exact. Overall, it was an entertaining movie.

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Sanjana Venkat
1/19/2016 05:55:07 pm

When watching “The Vow” the first time, I took it at face value. I saw the story of a girl who woke up with amnesia after a traumatic car accident. She struggled, fought her way back (as in any good romance), and ended the movie with the guy in what most would consider a “happy ending”. However, after seeing the movie again and comparing what I’ve learned and researched to the events in the movie, I’m able to see the causes of each interaction between the main characters Paige and Leo. As the commentary explains, Paige suffers from retrograde amnesia, and her memory cuts off suddenly, an aspect that is a bit unrealistic. Her relationship with Leo throughout the movie demonstrates many side effects of amnesia that people suffer from in real life. Behavior inconsistencies such as “mood swings, headaches, and migraines” (Patel and Tran) are obvious as she fights with Leo and struggles with what career and relationships she wants in her life. Additionally, Paige’s memories are consistent with those typically contained by those with retrograde amnesia. Her procedural memories are untouched, so she remembers how to paint, but she can’t remember specific events, like her wedding (“Retrograde Amnesia”).

Overall, while certain aspects of “The Vow” don’t hold true, I believe that it is a close representation of the symptoms and side effects of retrograde amenesia. The inconsistencies are most likely attributed to the need for a more dramatic plot, because after all, it is Hollywood.

Works Cited
Patel, Shabina, and Kelly Tran. "Retrograde Amnesia in The Vow." Cognition in Film. N.p., 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.

"Retrograde Amnesia - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory." Retrograde Amnesia - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.

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Giang Hoang
3/4/2016 08:44:45 pm

I watched “The Vow” in theater when it came out several years ago, and the movie’s main idea in my mind had been a true romantic movie which a happy ending that the couple found their way back into love after the car accident. I have never looked at the movie from a different perspective, such as psychological perspective, until I took a psychology class and we discussed about brain disorders. This time watching the movie again, I realized that though the movie successfully captured audience’s emotion and fantasy of a beautiful love story, it did not succeed in capturing the psychological aspect of retrograde amnesia after traumatic brain injury. Although retrograde amnesia is a less common form of memory lost due to traumatic brain injury, the period of lost memory usually short (i.e. one year) (Sellal et al 2002). But in an unusual case like “The Vow”, Page lost more than a year of her memory, which left her with a very crooked sense. In real life case, due to the crooked sense, patients experience not just the lost of memories, but also they lose themselves, in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And patients had retrograde amnesia never fully recover (Polster et al 1991) like in the movie because they do not have the ability to find the exact same experiences that lead them to develop into the person they were before.

Reference:

Sellal, François, Lilianne Manning, Caroline Seegmuller, Christian Scheiber, and Francis Schoenfelder. "Pure Retrograde Amnesia Following a Mild Head Trauma: A Neuropsychological and Metabolic Study." Cortex 38.4 (2002): 499-509. Web

Polster, Michael R., Lynn Nadel, and Daniel L. Schacter. "Cognitive Neuroscience Analyses of Memory: A Historical Perspective." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 3.2 (1991): 95-116. Web.

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Ronald Herazo
3/6/2016 07:56:27 am

I watched The Vow with my girlfriend few years ago. In this particular movie, it can be seen the complexity of human brain. The science has not determined the right answer for amnesia, which is the partial or the total loss of memory. The brain stimulation plays a vital role in the adaptation of human being during memory loss. In this movie, even though Paige lost her memory, she seems relaxed and wanted to continue with her life. Also, it is clear to understand that providing a space and time where the person will be able to recover his/her memory is very important; this process cannot be forced, and everything that the person does need to be evaluated. Based on this, scientists can determine if the human brain is responding well to the tests they had provided to the person. This would be able to analyze the brain in order to find any other solutions

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Meaghan Rhodes
3/14/2016 07:19:34 pm

The Vow is based on a true story, which is not perfectly and accurately portrayed when it comes to the kind of injury that Paige had encountered. After the accident with her husband she was diagnosed with suffering from a traumatic brain injury or TBI. Because of this type of injury she also experiences some retrograde amnesia, which causes her to forget her recent life including her husband. Although there was a happy ending this type of ending would not be quite believable in her case. Most people will lost their identity and not regain it for the rest of their life. Overall I enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to anyone who likes Channing Tatum and romance movies with a splash of psychology here and there.

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Rebecca
6/7/2017 03:43:56 pm

In The Vow, Paige, a newly-wed bride, loses her memory after being involved in a terrible car accident. Her memory sets her back a few years, thus she does not remember meeting and marrying her husband Leo. Similar to the movie 50 First Dates, Leo attempts to woo her back by reminding her of memories of their relationship. There are many accuracies and inaccuracies in this movie. One thing they got right was their portrayal of retrograde amnesia. Those with retrograde amnesia forget their past. Paige lost all her memories as far back as five years or so, so she thought she was still dating a different guy and did not know she was an artist. However, the last thing she remembers is eating in a restaurant. This is not typical for retrograde amnesia patients since their memory does not cut off after one specific moment. Instead, they may remember different things from the past, but the memories will be fuzzy or ambiguous. Additionally, those with retrograde amnesia are able to remember events of the day of the accident or the accident itself. Another thing that was portrayed inaccurately is Paige’s personality after the accident. Traumatic brain injury patients as severe as Paige’s tend to have different personalities that remain throughout their lives. Paige’s personality when she woke up from her coma was identical to her personality five years ago. Over the course of the movie, her “future” personality came back. This scenario would most likely never happen in reality. Overall, I do not think this movie did a good job portraying TBI and amnesia accurately.

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Presley Stonebrook
6/11/2017 08:58:16 pm

The popular film, The Vow, portrays the emotional process that pairs with traumatic brain injury as well as retrograde amnesia from the real life events of Krickett Carpenter and the automobile accident she and her husband were involved in. Paige (the portrayal of Krickett within the film) still holds procedural memories, but unlike the more common anterograde amnesia or inability to form new memories/information she cannot place memory to approximately the past five years. Within the film she can trace her memory to a point in which she is ordering a dish from a restaurant, but her memories of meeting and marrying her husband as well as making conscious decisions for her passions instead of family expectations from the past five years are not retrievable. Due to these circumstances she therefore resorts to the person she can remember and we as an audience see her change from character the film began with. With traumatic brain injury most patients can recall blurry instances of memory that are not so concrete to a specific memory as we see with Paige. As we see within the film she was stationary within a car and then suddenly propelled from her seat through the windshield and in acceleration of closed head injuries the brain experiences incredible force. Significant changes in behavior and emotion may follow head injury and we see such an accurate portrayal of emotional distress in Paige’s character as well as her husband Leo, understandably, and family. The severity of emotional distress for seeing a life unrecognizable to Paige as well as the frustration of those in her life was done so accurately. The coma she was in following the accident was not given a timeline, simply filmed merely for the scene. Her case of retrograde amnesia does display an independent experience as no case is a textbook definition, but medically this type of amnesia does include the temporal lobes, hippocampus and diencephalon.

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