Frank & Louis, which premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival, is a moving drama about prison and Alzheimer's. Those tough subjects combine for a powerful story about trying to make meaning when health and systems are against you.
Impossible situations make great drama. Characters are forced to choose the least bad option and they're only doing their best.
Alzheimer's is a matter of good days and bad in the best circumstances. In prison, Louis sometimes has to be reminded where he is and what he did to get there.
Prison is already full of aggression and distrust. Add Alzheimer's to that and the powderkeg ignites.
Julian (Rene Perez Joglar) trains Frank briefly, showing how gentle he can be with patients. Some just need help getting a spoon to their mouth to eat.Louis is different every day. He is aggressive at first but cowers like a child when Frank matches his intensity.
At only 60, Louis has early onset Alzheimer's. Frank sometimes plays along with Louis' delusions, but then Louis forgets and wonders why he's in a prison yard.
A parole board hearing suggests that none of the work Frank did in 17 years can overcome the grieving daughter of his victim. He can make amends and regret his crime but that's still not enough for the family.
All of these characters did horrible things. One can still have compassion for human beings. Alzheimer's makes the efficacy of punishment questionable, since the disease erases any sense of cause and effect.
Julian and Frank are trying to do better. Their struggle is imperfect, human, and a journey worth taking with them.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
