This isn’t a review because it’s not about the film as a film but more a point of interest within it – but can say from a review standpoint having watched it all the way through – it didn’t quite deliver. Face to face I can talk about films for hours but online I try to keep it brief.

This is your average rom com with popular leading actors with Cameron Diaz playing one of the leads in her bright smiley way (she is pleasant to watch). But the reason I bring up this film in a non review context and her character in particular is that there were two specific moments that perfectly showed what I think Hyperphantasia is or at least it gave a good visual representation of it. Which was actually quite handy as my husband has Aphantasia so for him, he can’t ‘imagine’ what’s it’s like. This was a good way for him to actually ‘see’ what I had been trying to tell him about my sometimes seemingly neurotic brain. He managed to sit through a small portion of the film having less of a tolerance for watching pap than I do, but he hot the point.

The two examples that stick with me after the fact are –

She is trying to sleep, and the next day starts running through her head, almost causing a panic attack because it was so frantic and busy. I know this process well. And the second is when she is explaining to the potential love interest why it wouldn’t work out and runs through the entire scenario she has already worked out in her mind. These two things in particular were and are exactly what I do (although this movie wasn’t about Hyperphantsia, I spotted what I now see as the signs of it). Until I knew how my husband thought i.e. no pictures, no imagining tomorrow, and sure as hell no run through of any conversation he had had previously, or was going to have in the future. I had believed everyone had this frantic level of thinking, planning and general non stop thoughts. I thought everyone thought through what they were going to do later than day, or the next day. I think I believed they just managed it better than me and didn’t get bogged down by it. But now I know better…

(c) K Wicks