Alzheimer’s is a deadly disease and a scourge, affecting more than 6 million Americans alone. It’s also challenging to depict in film, though there have been notable performances from Julia Christie in the 2007 “Away from Her,” Julianne Moore in 2014’s “Still Alice,” Gena Rowlands in the 2004 “The Notebook,” Judi Dench as “Iris,” Gena Rowlands in 2019’s “Elizabeth is Missing” and Anthony Hopkins in last year’s “The Father.”
None are in Valerio Zanoli’s new film “Not to Forget,” though there is an impressive cast roster involved that includes five – count ’em – five Oscar winners: Cloris Leachman, Olympia Dukakis, Louis Gossett Jr., Tatum O’Neal and a nearly unrecognizable George Chakaris.
They all appear as townspeople though, in a Kentucky hamlet where the octogenarian actress who stars is Karen Grassle, best known for playing the mother on “Little House on the Prairie” for all of its nine seasons. Devoting her time to largely small theater parts after that show went off the air in 1983, “Not to Forget” is her biggest role in decades.
And it’s a thankless one, in which according to the script, she has good days and bad days — a bright ray of sunshine here and a dark, confused and tormented woman there. She’s most unconvincing when she sits down at the piano to obviously not play the tune that is supposed to bring past memories to her.
I kept thinking how different it had been if Leachman had been lead instead of as a perpetual customer at the beauty shop — the rural setting recalls the searing performance that got her the Academy Award for “The Last Picture Show” more than a half a century ago. “Not to Forget” represents one of the final films from Leachman, who died in January 2021 at 94. And it’s the last role for Dukakis, who died last May at 89, capping a 57-year career.