A Road Trip About Late‐Life, Love and Loss

We present a film analysis of the 2024 comedy-drama Memory Lane (De Terugreis) 1, written by Marijn de Wit, co-written and directed by Jelle de Jonge, which follows a road trip taken by an old married couple, wife Maartje (Leny Breederveld) and husband Jaap (Martin van Waardenberg), as he comes to terms with the fact that she is suffering from dementia. The film's accolades of best feature at the Netherlands Film Festival and Dutch entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards position it as a poignant cultural landmark in the filmic representation of dementia. In Memory Lane, Jaap begins as a gruff homebody who transitions into a more open-minded person for his wife of 50 years, Maartje, who grows increasingly confused. They embark on a cross-country journey from the Netherlands to Spain to visit Luis, an old friend. The film is set against a backdrop of visual fiction 2 that tends to use tropes of dependency on a heroic carer 3 and brief lucidity amid memory loss 4. While the film offers little surprise in its narrative beats, the spousal dynamic is portrayed with tenderness. This review situates itself in filmic representation theory 5 for filmgoers to compassionately understand 6 the lived experience of older adults 7: scholarly work suggests that foregrounding the agedness of protagonists can improve public perception on stigma 8, 9 and counter current negative portrayals of old age 10 in both movies 11 and fiction 12. We adopt a close reading of three narrative arcs: the Wife, Husband, and the Couple, to interrogate how later life is portrayed by balancing the inevitability of loss while dignifying years of memories made together. In the film, Maartje's mental deterioration oscillates between lucidity and confusion. What begins as small incongruities (setting out one plate too many, repeating the same questions) are interwoven with deepening severity: she goes missing twice, and nearly vanishes again if not for Jaap spotting her in time. Moments of social ease fracture quickly: she tells stories animatedly at dinner, only to wander into the kitchen a scene later, suddenly disoriented. Her sense of time falters as she asks already-retired Jaap if he needs to return to work. She occasionally breaks from reality, insisting they are in a laboratory while seated in a motel dining room, and hides in a cupboard to escape imaginary pursuers. Amid this haze, Maartje has flashes of clarity suffused with fear as she admits tearfully, “I feel weird”; in another moment, she cries, “I'm not doing it on purpose,” bolting away in distress. The wife's decline is also explored through the motif of photography. She wields a camera throughout their trip, serving as a memory-keeper who sees beauty in the mundane. She warmly offers to capture photographs for strangers (a kissing couple, a tattooed waitress, children enjoying a party) and takes snapshots from their car. Her cross-country suitcase is packed full of old photographs and is herself remembered through pictures from the past. The symbolic significance of memory is underscored when, at the end of the film, Maartje accidentally drops this camera. It is never made clear if it is broken—an unresolved visual shorthand for if the burgeoning loss of memory can be safeguarded against and preserved—to comfort her, Jaap picks up the camera and presses the shutter (see Figure 1); metaphorically suggesting that, broken or not, he will continue to witness her life. At the start of the film, Jaap is reluctant to acknowledge his wife's decline: he rejects his sister-in-law's concerns about Maartje's increasing forgetfulness. Over the trip, circumstances force him to confront reality. He desperately searches for her as she wanders off, and injures his hand while mime-fighting her imaginary attackers. He bathes and dresses her after she soils herself, gently murmuring reassurance, “You're my sweetheart, aren't you?” His emotional strain surfaces in quieter moments: a close-up lingers as he struggles to contain grief while his spouse rambles nonsense about a departing ship; at night, he slips away for a solitary pint, framed in an isolating shot among diners. By the end of the film, they find out that their initial reason for the road trip (to visit their old friend, Luis) was moot: he died a month ago. His daughter, Andrea, nevertheless invites them to stay for a dinner party, where she pointedly asks Jaap: “She's not doing well, is she?”, while they watch Maartje dance. Jaap, suppressing tears, says, “No. Maartje's ill. I'm afraid. I don't know what to do without her.” Andrea, nodding empathetically, simply responds, “I know.” Her father had endured a long widowerhood; she validates a shared fear of losing a partner within a broader, intergenerational experience of familial loss. Jaap himself undergoes personal change. At the outset, he pushes others away (stops going to choir, avoids phone calls and public interaction), is resistant to change (rebuffs his brother's encouragement to exercise and switching to an electric car: “It still works. Why should I buy a new one?”), fears the outside world (is afraid of driving, rejects his wife's initial desire to travel, consumes streams of negative news on television: “I want to wait before visiting. With all the crime.”). This stasis shifts after Maartje first goes missing: a turning point prompting him to confront his anxieties by getting back on the road. Gradually, Jaap discovers a capacity to adapt; he proposes detours to view landmarks, spontaneously rolls down windows, learns to view strangers with less suspicion, and drives an automatic car for the first time. Through the journey, he is altered in his willingness to re-enter a changing world, reshaped by necessity. The road trip showcases the highs and lows of companionship. The film is interspersed with scenes of shared memory: cassette tapes, old songs, laughter and idle conversations about cheese, mundane yet intimate reminders of a life built together. Simultaneously, frustrating scenes depict them bickering over directions, retracing routes, and the car breaking down; they are baffled by changes: an old barn and greenery from memory have been replaced by tarmac. They also navigate physical intimacy throughout the film: Jaap initially rejects Maartje's initiation of touch in a hotel, alongside bids for verbal affirmation, but later grows jealous of a man who helps push their car up a hill, with the couple's arc concluding when he initiates a kiss; a gesture of renewed connection (see Figure 2). The motif of the mirror recurs throughout, with multiple visuals presenting the couple's grooming rituals involving agedness indicators—brushing graying and thinning hair, beard shaving, skincare, wrinkles, perfume, and lipstick—as they prepare to join Andrea's family party; they take a moment to make eye contact with their mirrored selves in acknowledgement of the shared years etched into their reflections. The notion of jointly experiencing the joys and woes of life is thematically resolved in a bittersweet coda, with the inclusion of lyrics from Nothing Rhymed by Gilbert O'Sullivan toward the film's end: aptly, “Nothing old, nothing new, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” R. Ng and T.Y.J. Chow co-wrote the manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Commonwealth Fund's Harkness Senior Fellowship in Health Care Policy and Practice awarded to Reuben Ng, PhD. This work was supported by the Commonwealth Fund's Harkness Senior Fellowship in Health Care Policy and Practice. The funder had no role in the writing and decision to publish. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.