"Pass the bucket, give me strength and have some dignity are just some of the instinctive responses. So it is with trepidation verging on dread that one approaches Emma and Bruce Willis: The Unexpected Journey A Diane Sawyer Special. But, much like the other recent potential schmaltzfest My Mom Jayne (Mariska Hargitay's film about her mother, Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car crash when Hargitay was three), it turns out unexpectedly well."
"Alas: No one in life knows when there is a shadow about to creep in. The shadow here, of course, is Willis's diagnoses in the last few years, first with aphasia after which he announced his retirement from acting and then with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a rare form of dementia, for which life expectancy is generally five to eight years."
Expectations of mawkishness accompany a televised profile of Emma Heming and Bruce Willis timed to Heming's caregiving memoir, yet the programme proves unexpectedly restrained and affecting. Diane Sawyer's interview style draws criticism for its sympathetic head tilt and scripted narration, but archival footage and early relationship imagery provide genuine warmth. The piece chronicles Willis's career highlights from Moonlighting and Die Hard to his range in Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense. The account traces Willis's diagnoses, first aphasia leading to retirement and later frontotemporal dementia, noting FTD's typical five-to-eight year life expectancy. Caregiving and memory are central themes.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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