Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025
Walk With Me
Heidi Levitt
Genre: Biographical Drama, Comedic, Film, Fringe Film, True-life
Venue: EIFF
Festival: Edinburgh International Film Festival
Low Down
A documentary centred around a wife learning to care for her husband over 4 years of his early onset Dementia diagnosis.
Review
Unfortunately for most of us- we know a loved one who has/had Dementia. We watch as our loved ones go from cognitive beings with independence and opinions to a diminished version of themself. It’s a hard but a truthful reality as almost 1 million people in the UK alone- are currently living with the disease.
There is a mistaken assumption that dementia is an older person’s disease, but the unspoken truth is variates of Dementia such as frontotemporal dementia; is majority diagnosed by 45–65-year-olds. Thats where ‘Walk with me’ comes in to educate us.
The film opens with a zoom call- evanescent of Covid days. A smiley middle-aged man is asked what day it is today. He cannot find the answer. His wife, thanks the doctor, who is on the other side of the call, and wishes him a happy Friday. “Friday! It’s Friday!” exclaimed the middle-aged man, whose name is Charlie.
Charlie has early onset Alzheimer’s and was diagnosed at 57. Along with his wife, Heidi; they are on a quest to discover more about the degenerative disease. The film is filmed over 4 years. We get to see for ourselves -over these 3 years-how quickly the disease can chip at the brain. The filming is focused on Charlie’s everyday life, from watching home videos of his wedding day, to shaving his beard, visiting friends and attempting to do his job- which he excelled in for most of his life.
What is very touching about the film is that we get to see the conflicts brought about from frustration of the disease. Multiple times Charlie claims that Heidi is “‘bullying me,” as he struggles to do things “the right way”. As one of the doctors says in the film “The patient is doing the best they can,” to which Heidi responds with “and so is the carer.” Heidi shows us how she must be one step ahead of Charlie to try and make him feel like he is capable of doing simple things. She makes the coffee in the evening so Charlie can push one button to heat it up in the morning and presetting the TV to his favourite channel. Unfortunately for most carers, they are considered ‘the punching bag’ and the strain on them can be life threatening- as Heidi is informed by a doctor: a carers life expectancy can be shorted by 4 to 8 years.
Another of the doctors Heidi visits explains how important it is that you don’t treat a dementia patient like you’re they’re parent because they can feel like they are failing. We see how Charlie’s self-confidence is decaying over time from ‘silly mistakes’ of losing his shoes to being unable to draw a tree. Charlie worked as a graphic designer and was a big name in his industry- working for UCLA magazine as well as Buzz Magazine and worked on Laura Dern’s 1991 cover. These days Charlie says; ‘it’s difficult to find what my purpose is.’
The cinematography by Lisa Rinzler is stunning. Simeon Hunter edits beautiful shots of Heidi and Charlie swimming and being free in nature. Charlie and Heidi concluded that it is art and nature that are the key to finding calm in all the noise. Towards the end of the film Heidi realises that she must start to accept the not knowing- although determined to find a way to fight Charlie’s disease. It’s beautiful as we watch her learn to adapt and begin to live in the moment instead of adding extra strain to her life.
On the screen we see a Maya Angelou quote that I think explains the one thing Dementia cannot rob from people’s lives. Love. It is at the centre of this film as the beating heart- rippling throughout.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
It’s a delicate film filled with laughter, sadness, pain and frustration- but isn’t that exactly what Dementia is? It’s a journey- a very hard journey but it is a lot easier to continue to find joy and love within the chaos- and that’s exactly what this film does.
