A Memory in My Heart (TV Movie 1999) Poster

(1999 TV Movie)

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6/10
Regaining her mind and her sanity
jotix10027 November 2005
Rebecca Blake, the attractive woman one sees at the beginning of this made for television movie, is having a hard time at her local super market where she collapses after she sees a young child , who obviously is a reminder of someone she knows. One realizes right away this woman has no recollection and no memory of who she is, or where she came from. Rebecca is happily married to Joe, a good man that clearly adores her.

When she meets by chance someone on the street who greets her as Abby, she tells the woman she must have made a mistake, but that triggers in her mind a doubt. She goes back to this lady, who tells her how she met her and the area of California she was from. Rebecca pleads with Joe to let her go to unravel the mystery and all the tangled web in her mind.

Harry Winer directed this story that supposedly is based on a true story, as most television movies are. The story is greatly helped by the heartfelt performances of the principals. Jane Seymour is Rebecca, the woman who lost her life through no choice of her own. Bruce Davison is Chase, her former husband who is the key player in what happened to Abby/Rebecca. David Keith is the sheriff of the small California town where Abby finds the missing pieces of her past. A. Martinez plays Joe, the new man in Abby's life.

The film was totally shot in the town of Fillmore, California, which is the center of the orange growing industry and offers a magnificent setting for the story. Since it's a melodrama, prepare the Kleenex, but the film is worth watching thanks to what director Winer did with this story.
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7/10
Not a bad amnesia mystery
AnnieLola24 June 2006
I agree that Jane Seymour's now-mature beauty isn't shown to best advantage in this piece, and her distinctive crooked mouth is sometimes allowed to look like an actual distortion. It's agreeable to find that the plot isn't quite predictable, and one really can't help staying with the story to see the mystery solved, and (one hopes) all resolved. What did he do? Why did he do it? It's hard to say whether all questions are answered... I had difficulty with the chronology, since it's mentioned that Abbie married very young-- then one looks at the ages of the children and at Jane and ex-hubby and things don't quite add up, but really, one can just ignore that and go with the premise. It was quite needless, though, that when Abbie/Rebecca and her daughter are having a special moment finding some 'forget-me-nots', the flowers are obviously lobelia. Watch and see!
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7/10
An amnesia movie that mostly works
vincentlynch-moonoi2 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Usually when I see the plot of a movie (whether theatrical or t.v.) involves amnesia, I groan and instead pull out the DVD of one of my most favorite movies -- "Random Harvest" starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. "A Memory In My Heart" is no "Random Harvest", but it's far better than most amnesia-related stories.

That's thanks, in large part, to excellent performances by Jane Seymour and Bruce Davison. The one big criticism here -- although they do deal with the issue -- is that Seymour's husband in the film (A Martinez...who does well) leaves his wife to explore her past -- a possibly dangerous past -- on her own. Yes, they explain that away, but I just don't buy that. Other than that, however, the script holds together pretty well.

They only hint at the ex-husband's abuse (I actually would agree with him that a 1 page written book report on "Of Mice & Men" is unsatisfactory), but on the other hand, some films would have overdone the angle of abuse, and this film was for television, not for the big screen.

One of the things I'm enjoying in our covid-post covid era is the streaming of some dandy old t.v. Productions...and this was one.
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10/10
About the movie and how I liked it!
Band_Freak8923 May 2007
I love this movie! I couldn't stop watching it. I wanted to see it to the end with out and interruptions. Rebecca loved her kids so much and her ex-husband made it to where she couldn't remember who she was. Her new husband loves her so much that he was scared that he was going to lose her when she went to find out what happened in her past that gave the scar on her forehead. When she was stopped by a lady and called her Abbie and asked if she got her kids back she had to find out what had happened to her. She went to her old town that the lady told her that she used to live in and remembered some of things that happened to her gradually. The more time she spent their the more she started remembering. This movie just kept getting better and you couldn't predict what would happen next.Just watch and see how great this movie really is! You wont be able to stop watching it!! You will want to keep watching it to see what will happen next!
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memory restores pain
petershelleyau25 March 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Executive produced by James Keach, Jane Seymour is Rebecca Vega, a bookstore worker living in San Pedro with construction worker husband Joe (A. Martinez), but she has headaches and nightmares. She meets Lynn Wyman (Cathy Lee Crosby) who knew Rebecca as Abbie Stewart with 3 children - Jenna (Amanda Barfield), Ethan (Colton James) and Lilly (Mika Boorem) - and Rebecca goes to Fillmore County to investigate her past.

Seymour has a gash in her forehead which we later see is from being hit with a fireplace poker, and in her flashback memory her long hair is shoulder length and she wears virginal white. She is actually lit unflatteringly, looking tired and leathery, perhaps partly due to her traumatised state, so when her former husband school principal Chase (Bruce Davison) tells her how beautiful she is, it sounds odd. Seymour provides sobless tears, we see her handwriting, wears a stick in her hair worn up, overdoes a hesitation in opening a buzzed door, and has a campy panic-attack faint in a supermarket.

The teleplay by Lindsay Harrison and Renee Longstreet, based on a true story, has a howler in Rebecca/Abbie to Chase 'I've learned a lot from you. School's over.', and Jenna has a good line in sarcasm when she tells her mother to take her locket in case she loses her memory again, but director Harry Winer goes all out with the nightmare/daymare visions - black and white, tilted and subjective camera, whiplash editing, slow motion, stop motion, and lightning flashes, and fire - plus a choir in the music of Mark Snow.
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10/10
An Exceptional Performance by Jane Seymour of an Amnesia victim who had a past ...
owenbatt19 January 2022
... This Movie is made for sensitive individuals who have a vulnerable heart! This story is deep in that it could happen to many ... !! Money, Power, Control are consistent attributes of Controlling People...!!! I recommend this Movie to anyone who is sensitive to the realities that impact many / most of us in life on this earth!! ... ]= It is Not for the faint of heart !! It is Educational indeed !!
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9/10
A Memory in My Heart Doesn't Go Out ***1/2
edwagreen27 November 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Jane Seymour is wonderful here as mother suffering from amnesia as a result of the beating she got from her husband, a wealthy school principal. He was able to go to court and charge abandonment and therefore obtain custody of the children. Finally, he tells the children that their mother is dead.

8 years later, Seymour, who doesn't remember a thing, has a chance meeting with a fellow waitress. The latter fills her in on her life and of course, she goes back to Fillmore California. Naturally, she is threatened by her husband, a much older looking but totally effective Bruce Davison. Remember him in his supporting Oscar nomination for 1989's "Longtime Companion?" He was also the older Patrick in the 1974 Lucille Ball "Mame" vehicle.

This terrific film just shows you what a brutal man can do when he has so much power in town.
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8/10
Quite a well written amnesia movie
phd_travel13 March 2019
Jane Seymour is always a great actress much better than the average TV movie actress. The story is involving and doesn't waste time. An amnesiac for 8 years is recognised by an old friend. She then returns to her town and solves the mystery of why she left her kids. It's quite touching as she reconnects with her kids and things are well explained. Bruce Davison is good as the ex husband and David Keith as the sheriff.
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