Dick Johnson is Dead

 With the spectre of Alzheimer's looming over her dad, documentarian Kirsten Johnson -who'd already lost her mother to the same disease some years earlier- decided to celebrate the man by making a movie about him while he's still mostly present.

 But that would be too straightforward, so the documentary instead hangs on a gimmick. To confront his mortality, several scenes are staged where Dick Johnson dies in various ways: an air conditioner falls on him, he drops dead in the street, etc. There's also a fake funeral, and some weird, purposefully kitschy scenes in a music-hall like heaven where Mr. Johnson (who is still a believer) holds court while dancers wearing oversized photographic masks of himself and his wife as youths sway merrily in the background. I can only guess at what he was thinking.

 It's a weird and not entirely successful conceit, but Mr. Johnson goes along with his daughter's ideas with a seemingly unending reserve of patience and good will. At one point, covered in fake blood on a cold New York street, he compares the act of filming one of his demises unfavorably to the experience of surviving an actual heart attack. Not that you could tell that he's miserable; He's one of those people who remains pleasant even on the most trying circumstances.

 You can see why the director thought the fake deaths angle would be a good idea, but honestly, I'm not a fan. Best case scenario it was well intentioned and it didn't work out, worst case it feels mercenary: forced quirkiness, something that they came up to get the movie greenlit.
 The artifice of those staged scenes certainly doesn't seem to do much for Mr. Johnson; He seems to go along with it just to please his daughter, whom he dotes over. I hope it helped her, at least.

Chocolate fudge cake as a running theme; I approve.

 As the movie starts Mr. Johnson is closing down his psychological practice and selling off the beautiful house he lived in with his wife to move in with his daughter in her tiny NY apartment. He has to give up his car, and driving. It's devastating.

 Like any movie about Alzheimer's that attempts to portray it truthfully, I can only describe the experience of watching it as a constant kick to the emotional balls/ovaries. Despite eliding the most horrifying stages of the disease it still manages to be brutal, a sort of psychological act of terrorism; All this made even more hurtful by the fact that Dick Johnson is clearly a wonderful, delightful human being - a ridiculously sweet man whose love for his daughter is as clear as her love for him.

 The movie is full of powerful little moments: it tries to linger on the more positive ones, though most of them end up being bittersweet. Some of them even are a result of the gimmicks; a friend's eulogy/bugle salute in the fake funeral is hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.
 The funeral is fake, and the mourners know Dick is not dead and probably will not die in the immediate future. But it's still a farewell. So maybe I'm wrong and the gimmick is worth it; I'm just angry at it because it made the guy miserable for one afternoon.

 Dick Johnson is Dead is a beautiful, heartfelt documentary, full of warmth and humanity. I am very glad I watched it, and would rather never watch it again.