A couple married for 35 years slowly walks through a hospital following an appointment with a doctor to hear the results of recently taken tests. They’re in shock over the news they’ve just received as their hands come together and clasp tightly, realizing that a major battle is coming sooner rather than later.
In the Lifetime movie “Love, Again,” premiering at 8 p.m. PT Saturday on Lifetime, that unfortunate battle is early-onset Alzheimer’s and it’s the diagnosis 60-year-old Judge Henry Stanford (Henry Czerny) receives after he’s been masking increased forgetfulness and lying to his loving wife, Caroline (Valerie Bertinelli), about keeping up with his regular medical checkups.
As time passes in the film, written by Nancey Silvers and directed by David I. Strasser, Henry’s health declines and Caroline does her best to be the sole caregiver to her husband but experiences the responsibility’s weight both physically and emotionally.
“Caroline is so vulnerable, but she’s very much like me where you’re strong and no matter what’s going on that’s scary or unpleasant in your life, you still have to go and do what you need to do,” says Bertinelli, who is also an executive producer on the project.
The film’s subject matter is not one that Silvers had direct personal experience with, but when she was asked to explore writing a movie on the subject, her producing colleague Linda L. Kent began sharing a story about a friend going through the experience of Alzheimer’s with a spouse. However, Silvers stopped her before she shared too much, saying, “I don’t want to know anything except the emotions of what she went through, how she dealt with it and what was the hardest part. I don’t need the specifics because that’s what I’ll come up with by myself.”
The writer, who is the daughter of beloved comic Phil Silvers, had seen the 2014 film “Still Alice,” which starred Julianne Moore and dealt with early-onset familial Alzheimer’s, but she was surprised about what she learned once she started doing research. “I assumed we had made some progress and that things had moved forward [in finding a cure], but I was surprised that it’s becoming more and more prevalent,” she says. She then talked to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, which states on its website that there are nearly 15 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s or caring for someone with the disease. Through the organization, Silvers was educated more on promising drugs and treatments that may not provide a cure yet but do keep a diagnosed person healthier much longer. “I put [that information] in the movie that there’s hope on the horizon.”
Aside from the research, the emotional toll of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is something Bertinelli connected with because she has witnessed people she’s loved slowly die, along with the tough challenges that caregivers go through. “The caregiving role is something that is never quite acknowledged,” she says. “The closest I’ve ever gotten to it was watching my dad [Andrew, who died in 2016] go through sundowners, which was a certain point in the day where I just couldn’t find him. He was there but he wasn’t there and that’s the closest I ever got and I do understand how challenging it is for people.”
Though Caroline tries to manage Henry on her own even as his health continues to worsen — he forgets alarm codes, family members’ names and doesn’t know where he is — she unexpectedly finds solace in Dr. Leo Marford (Eric McCormack), who works as head of anesthesiology at the hospital where she volunteers in the gift shop. The fact that Leo is a widow who cared for his wife until she passed away from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease) gives them something to connect with though their feelings gradually deepen over time. “As soon as she meets Leo, there’s just something there even though his light has gotten dim and you see him brighten as they progress, as well,” Bertinelli says. “There are confused feelings that Caroline goes through because she absolutely adores and loves her husband.”
To create the two men that Caroline has different emotional connections with in the film — one she’s shared a life with, the other with whom she finds a caregiving bond — Silvers didn’t look far for inspiration. “Both men are my husband,” she says. “This story is the truth of how my husband and I go through this, even though we haven’t. I just put him in those shoes and watched him lose and lose more every day in my head. It’s hard, it’s emotional, but that’s what makes it real.”
As for Leo, who is slightly younger than Henry in the film, Silvers channeled her husband at the time when she first met him.
And though she’s developing feelings for Leo, Caroline’s focus stays on caring for Henry, which becomes emotionally and physically more strenuous, culminating in a moment where Henry doesn’t recognize Caroline and, for the first time, becomes physically violent toward her. But where to set such a scene was something Silvers toyed with, thinking of situations where either Caroline couldn’t find Henry or he’s wandered away from home. But she inevitably felt those scenes had been played out before in film and television. “To me, [the bathtub] was the most vulnerable place Henry could be in,” she says. “He’s naked with Caroline and doesn’t know who she is and screams at her and throws her around, then [remembers her and] calls her back.”
Not wanting to play it safe for such a vital scene even as Strasser suggested a stunt double, Bertinelli’s goal was to have that moment, “look as uncomfortably violent as it must have felt and I know people do go through this because you’re also losing the person you love.”
She adds, “You’re looking right in their eyes and they don’t see you and I wanted to get all that fear and violence in that one moment. It needed to be scary.”
Strasser staged the scene carefully and was committed to making sure the actors, especially Bertinelli, were safe once Henry tightly grabs Caroline and then, as she pulls out of his grip, falls back onto the bathroom floor. “I said to Val, ‘we’re not going to do this fall 10 times. We’re going to do it once,’” says Strasser. “I put the camera [far back] because I want the audience to see that moment in this wide, layered shot where you see the openness and the vastness of the room and you see the impact of Caroline’s fall.”
Ironically, it’s that horrific moment that causes a shift for Caroline and Leo, who is summoned by Caroline to help with Henry following the home incident. “Leo handles that moment with such care and I think that’s where Caroline really falls in love with him,” says Silvers. Also, it helps that Leo’s medical background allows him to handle himself emotionally and with empathy in tense situations because “he’s also been through it with his wife.”
Bertinelli has a simple hope for what people take from the film when they watch it. “When heartbreaking things happen, find your community,” she says. “Love is always good, no matter where or from whom it comes from. I know that the older I get, the more I lean on my girlfriends and I demand that they lean on me.”
The actor, who has performed on television and movies for over five decades, says, “I’m the most proud of this, absolutely. Things that come close to this are doing ‘Hot in Cleveland’ and ‘One Day at a Time’ but for a real emotional heft, I’m proudest of this.”
Bertinelli’s busy year began with her recently released memoir, “Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Imperfectly Perfect,” and her website ValeriesPlace.com, where she is building a community by posting recipes, cooking videos and live chats on a myriad of subjects, including discussions following the “Love, Again” airing on Saturday.
“I just turned 66 and it’s scary to think how your life just starts to fall between your fingers the older you get,” she says. “I know just through the last few years I’m looking at life just through a whole different lens about ‘What do I want to do with my third, last chapter? What do I want to accomplish? How much love can I show to the people I love so dearly?” Love again, again and again.
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