Decoding Annie Parker
Director: Steven Bernstein
Cast: Samantha Morton, Helen Hunt, Aaron Paul, Rashida Jones, Corey Stoll, Alice Eve, Maggie Grace, Bradley Whitford
Rating: (M)
Three stars (out of five)
But this is 1974 and medical science is yet to discover the location of BRCA1, the breast cancer gene.
Director Steven Bernstein has taken a few liberties with Annie Parker's book about her life and struggle with cancer, and not always to the benefit of the film.
It seems he has decided Parker's story on its own is not enough, so running in parallel is the story of Dr Mary-Claire King (Helen Hunt), who is engaged in her own battle with established thought regarding hereditary cancer.
Cycling between the two narratives would have been clever if there was more substance to their supposed connection.
But even when Bernstein tries to manufacture an intersection, it feels forced.
Perhaps it would have been better to spend more time with Parker, for whom Morton gives one of the best performances of her career.
She is paired with Aaron Paul as her slacker husband and the film really resonates when you take stock of the hurdles she has to overcome in terms of health and her fraught relationships.
Helen Hunt comes across as wooden, which probably reflects more on the way the film is cut, rather than on her.
With little time to delve into Dr King's work or life, the film also sacrifices elements of Parker's life that would be better in the film than on the cutting-room floor.
It's like having a bob each way and finishing fourth.
- Mark Orton
