Before Still Human and The Upside, 10 other great films about caregivers you need to watch
- The Intouchables, Misery, The Elephant Man, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane – films both life-affirming and terrifying have focused on carers and their charges
- Ann Hui’s A Simple Life, starring Andy Lau as a filmmaker caring for his family’s stroke-afflicted housemaid, triggered a resurgence in Hong Kong social dramas
Three of this week’s new releases in Hong Kong cinemas focus on the strained relationships between elderly or disabled patients and their hired help.
In Oliver Chan Siu-kuen’s debut Still Human, Anthony Wong Chau-sang plays a curmudgeonly divorcee, confined to a wheelchair, whose family hires Crisel Consunji’s Filipino helper to tend to his daily needs. Despite a language barrier, the relationship proves mutually beneficial.
The Upside follows a similar trajectory; in Neil Burger’s Hollywood remake of French smash-hit The Intouchables, Kevin Hart plays a parolee who talks his way into the position of live-in caregiver to Bryan Cranston’s quadriplegic billionaire. Also opening this week is the South Korean courtroom drama Innocent Witness , which centres on the apparent murder of an elderly man by his live-in helper (Yum Hye-ran).
The role of caregiver often falls to a spouse or family member, but can prove just as challenging when assigned to an employee. When explored in cinema, these complicated relationships often fall into one of two genres.
In the more life-affirming version of events, the typically mismatched pair will forge a grudging respect for one another, one that perhaps blossoms into a romance, as both learn a greater appreciation for their time on Earth. If the patient and carer don’t hit it off, the power dynamic can be exploited and the relationship becomes manipulative, leading to infinitely more terrifying results.
Here are 10 of our favourite carer films: