A daughter tries to comfort her mother with Alzheimer's but it backfires.


AWAKEN is used with permission from Leena Pendharkar. Learn more at https://leenap.com.


Rakhi has recently put her mother, Uma, into a care center after exploring other options for her treatment for Alzheimer's. But Rakhi’s mother isn’t taking well to it, with long spells of crying and bouts of confusion. At a loss of what to do and reluctant to increase Uma's medication, Rakhi brings her mother home in hopes of comforting her and helping her reset.

But bringing Uma home puts a strain on Rakhi's own family, and Uma herself doesn't seem to feel any better. Things hit their lowest point when Uma disappears. But as Rakhi searches for her, a moment from Uma's past paves the way to a solution.

Directed and written by Leena Pendharkar, this restrained but affecting short drama captures the delicate but heartwrenching difficulties of adult children caring for elderly parents, especially those struggling with Alzheimer's. With a quiet, observant naturalism in the visuals and attention to the unspoken subtexts underneath Rakhi's words and actions, it chronicles both the struggles of Rakhi to figure out the best course of care for her mother, as well as the internal journey to hold onto the parent she knows and loves underneath the ravages of dementia and disease.

The storytelling is elegantly pareddown, but it takes care to lay out the various pressures that Rakhi shoulders, which intersect with the stress of dealing with her mother's care: she has a highpressured job, as well as the tension in her own marriage and family. When Uma doesn't adjust well to the care center, the task of figuring out what to do next compounds her burden. Faced with the choice of upping her mother's meds or putting her in a different facility, Rakhi decides to take her mother home for a temporary reset as a last resort, in hopes that it will soothe and comfort her. But Rakhi's husband is against the idea, adding to tension at the home. And Uma herself is undeniably deteriorating, which becomes all too clear to Rakhi when Uma disappears.

Audiences may recognize actor Parminder Nagra from films and TV like BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM or ER. She plays Rakhi with a competent but weigheddown demeanor, hinting powerfully at the roiling, competing emotions underneath. There's a sense of hope against hope that Uma isn't deteriorating as much as she is, tied to a subtle denial of that fact. When Uma played by actor Vee Kumari disappears, Rakhi finds her in a meaningful spot from the past that helps Rakhi make peace with a difficult solution.

In doing so, Rakhi finally accepts the reality in front of her and makes peace with the road she needs to take, one that will care for her mother and allow Rakhi the space to tend to other aspects of her life. Poignant and heartbreaking, AWAKEN is about that often lonely process of acceptance, where a daughter resigns herself to the changes that her mother will continue to go through, losing more and more of the parent she grew up with. The love will always be there, but the reality must be faced, as quietly devastating as it is.