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General Major 
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ALT__TITLE |
Love Bites:
Go Now |
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DISABILITY |
General
multiple sclerosis |
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DIRECTOR |
Michael
Winterbottom
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NOTES |
A slow
start, nothing much is happening but the right mood is |
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captured.
Football, work, girlfriend. |
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Carlyle
plays Nick who begins to lose the feeling in one hand |
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and has
double vision. He ignores this but then boiling water |
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spills on
his hand and he doesn't feel the burning. Later he |
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crashes his
car because his foot won't work to apply the |
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brakes. This
forces him to admit he has a problem. |
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At hospital
he has various tests and fluid drawn from spine (or injected
before scan). Tested for
AIDS because he had been on holiday in Gambia. |
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His
girlfriend who has just moved in with him thinks he has |
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He goes home
where he uses two sticks (not crutches). |
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Then he wets
himself and is fitted with a catheter. Doctor |
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suggests he
might have m. s. He has more high tech tests. |
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They try to
make love but he can't get an erection. He tries |
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cannabis to
relieve the symptoms. |
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Eventually
the doctors rule out everything else and say it must |
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be m.s
(Chronic Progressive M.S). |
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Meanwhile
the girlfriend has jumped the gun and is reading |
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books on m.s.
and suggests an Essential Fatty Acid diet. He |
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gets
irritated with her because she tries too hard to help him.
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Though she
does start an affair with her boss. |
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Nick at
times makes heavy weather of his condition, feeling |
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sorry for
himself, which alienates her and his friends. His |
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best mate
who has joked about cripples since the beginning |
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of the film
finds the jokes now wearing a bit thin. |
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Nick does
improve and returns to work but then regresses. |
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He fights
back with exercise though he does use a |
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Frustrated
he asks his girlfriend to leave. She ends up |
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standing
outside their house (in the pouring rain of course) until he accepts
her back.
This film is an interesting, entertaining, detailed and accurate
depiction of the onset and treatment of m.s. And more the
film shows the effect and on the individual and his relations.
Carlyle you may know from "The Full Monty" is an excellent
actor and there's a good supporting cast.
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Notes
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