My wife and I watched this movie on Amazon streaming. While it appears to be a fictional story the science of using music to activate regions of the brain is real.
Gabriel is born into a typical 1940s/1950s family with post-WW2 values. Work hard, study hard, eat dinner together, do family things. But Gabriel didn't fit easily into this mold, in fact he was more interested in music, like the group "The Grateful Dead". It blew up one evening in the late 1960s and Gabriel left home, just before he finished high school and pretty much lost contact with his family.
Flash to the late mid 1980s and the family gets a call, Gabriel is hospitalized, turns out he has a very large, slow-growing benign tumor in his brain. Surgery is successful but Gabriel is different, he can't really carry on a conversation and can't seem to form new memories.
A therapist gets involved and uses music, specifically the music that Gabriel identified with over the years, like The Dead, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and each time as the music starts Gabriel becomes animated, he carries on intelligent conversations, it is as if the music activates deep memories in his brain. And ultimately the family, especially his dad, is able to reconnect with him through the music which never stopped.
Really good movie but a bit sad in certain scenes. Good acting from the principals, J.K. Simmons as dad, British actress Cara Seymour as the mom, and Pucci Lou as Gabriel.
Gabriel is born into a typical 1940s/1950s family with post-WW2 values. Work hard, study hard, eat dinner together, do family things. But Gabriel didn't fit easily into this mold, in fact he was more interested in music, like the group "The Grateful Dead". It blew up one evening in the late 1960s and Gabriel left home, just before he finished high school and pretty much lost contact with his family.
Flash to the late mid 1980s and the family gets a call, Gabriel is hospitalized, turns out he has a very large, slow-growing benign tumor in his brain. Surgery is successful but Gabriel is different, he can't really carry on a conversation and can't seem to form new memories.
A therapist gets involved and uses music, specifically the music that Gabriel identified with over the years, like The Dead, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and each time as the music starts Gabriel becomes animated, he carries on intelligent conversations, it is as if the music activates deep memories in his brain. And ultimately the family, especially his dad, is able to reconnect with him through the music which never stopped.
Really good movie but a bit sad in certain scenes. Good acting from the principals, J.K. Simmons as dad, British actress Cara Seymour as the mom, and Pucci Lou as Gabriel.