The Thor actor and his father try to escape the latter's symptoms by taking a road trip to their old favorite spots. It becomes a poignant treatise on the sadness of letting go of a parent.
Celebrities are always taking their parents on televised road trips, and they're usually cheap and easy assignments. "Look how self-deprecating I am," the celebrity says as he tries to give himself national treasure status by switching to lighthearted, truthful programming: "The person who knows me best is about to embarrass me a little on vacation!"
Director: Tom Barbor-Might
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Craig Hemsworth, Leonie Hemsworth
Rest assured, Chris Hemsworth: A Road Trip to Remember is a more serious adventure. It includes some intergenerational banter as the Thor star takes a motorcycle ride with his old man, but this is a journey filled with a wistful, desperate longing for a destination no one can reach. Craig Hemsworth, 71, has early-stage Alzheimer's.
His mental faculties are beginning to fail. But his son is a Hollywood star, with the resources of a television company behind him. Can it help? Chris is working with clinical psychologist Dr. Suraj Samtani, who advises on how dementia breaks down brain connections and how the patient's behavior can slow that process. Social interactions can forge new neural pathways, but the Hemsworths are particularly interested in what Samtani calls "practicing the retrieval of past memories." At home, they can sing old songs or watch home movies; this is where more ambitious plans can be made.
So Chris and Craig park their bikes, first, at the house outside Melbourne where the Hemsworth sons spent their teenage years. They're not just visiting: using an extensive collection of family photos, the house has been carefully remodeled to look exactly as it did in the 1990s, from the sofas to the posters on Chris's bedroom wall. Craig beams as he reminisces about making wooden airplanes for his sons and how cold the place got in winter. He wants to share this immersive experience with Leonie, his wife of 44 years: "Where's Leonie? Is she coming?"
Leonie is coming: she's not on the motorcycle trip, but the producers fly her to each location. "She's coming, Dad." Moments after hearing this, Craig has a new idea: "Where's Leonie? Is she coming?"
Chris Hemsworth's expression when his father falters is heartbreaking: dementia is as devastating for loved ones as it is for the patient, he reminds us, as Chris watches helplessly and Leonie breaks down during one of her interviews, experiencing the slow-motion pain of losing someone who is losing their mind. And so, when father and son hop back on their Harley-Davidsons to travel back in time to another old family home in Bulman, Northern Territory, the show focuses as much on Chris as it does on Craig.
Chris Hemsworth is a superhero on screen and, generally, a likeable presence off-screen, but his previous factual series, Limitless, revealed the vulnerability of the concerned person beneath. There, he faced extreme challenges designed to promote well-being, including battling aging: he donned a weighted suit that mimicked the frailty of old age and spent three days living in a nursing home. He knows he has the genes that predispose him to developing dementia. While his father's current condition is, of course, his primary concern, Chris worries about his own future well-being.
But that's not really the focus of A Road Trip to Remember. Bulman is a veritable wilderness, hours from the nearest town, where young Chris enjoyed a wild childhood. This is where Craig reached his peak, working as a buffalo herder alongside the local Indigenous community, inspiring his son as he would later do as a professional motorcycle racer and, in a different way, as a child protective service officer.
Craig was his son's hero. A Road Trip to Remember becomes not only a program about Chris's horror at losing the Craig of today, but also a poignant account of his grief at letting go, as every adult must, of the person who was his father, who gave him his childhood. The sights and smells of this part of the country feel, Chris says, "very comfortable, safe, like stepping back to a time when everything seemed so much simpler."
The program begins and ends with Chris holding a treasured photograph, capturing a moment in the woods where Craig, looking eerily similar to Chris now, gazes at his son with overflowing adoration.
Comments
Post a Comment