Movie Review Assignment: Unknown
Benjamin Barretto
PSY 101-I
November 9, 2015
Jaume Collet-Serra directed the film Unknown, which was produced in 2011 and is based off the novel Out of My Head, by Didier Van Cauwelaert. The movie follows Dr. Martin Harris, a biochemist, and his wife on a trip to Berlin, Germany for a scientific conference. Before even checking into his suite, Dr. Harris gets on a taxi back to the airport to retrieve his briefcase with important documents such as his passport. Unfortunately for Dr. Harris, he ends up being in a coma for four days from a car accident on the way to the airport. After waking up from his coma and walking out of the hospital, Dr. Harris goes back to the hotel where the conference…show more content… The movie accurately presents that the brain trauma Harris endured resulted in some kind of amnesia. One of the first signs that Harris is experiencing retrograde amnesia is that he doesn’t remember his wife not being with him in the taxi on the way back to the airport to get his briefcase containing their passports. The last thing Harris can recall was getting in a taxi with his wife at the airport but says, “I don’t know how I got here” (Unknown, 2011). The doctor then responds, “There are no rules with trauma of this kind; memories get lost or fractured, most of them returned, although it is unlikely you will ever fully recall the events around your accident” (Unknown, 2011). This is a clear indication that Harris has retrograde amnesia and what he is experiencing follows its definition. The film is accurate in presenting how people normally come out of a coma. At first, Harris is slow to speak and even takes some time to report his own name. “When coming out of a coma, a person probably will be confused and only slowly respond to what’s going on” (“What Is a Coma?”, 2014). The thing Harris doesn’t remember and is not obvious to us at first is that he was living a made up life as Dr. Harris and the woman he thought was his wife is not actually his wife. From the moment he wakes up from his coma, Harris…show more content… As a whole, Collet-Serra’s film accurately depicts what it means to have retrograde amnesia, despite the one controversial error. This being the second time I’ve watched the film, now with an understanding of the psychological concepts behind the story, I was better able to follow along with it and appreciate the movie altogether.
References
Feist, G., & Rosenberg, E. (2015). Memory. In PSYCHOLOGY Perspectives and Connections (Third ed., p. 621). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Gupta, R. (Ed.). (2014, August 1). What Is a Coma? Retrieved November 5, 2015.
Mastin, L. (2010). Retrograde Amnesia - Memory Disorders - The Human Memory. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
Novack, T., & Bushnik, T. (2002). Understanding TBI: Part 3 - The Recovery Process. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
Serra, J. (Director). (2011). Unknown [Motion picture]. Warner Home Video.
What Is an Automated External Defibrillator? (2011, December 2). Retrieved November 5,