Thriller Dealing with Face Blindness

[susiestar]

Has anyone seen the movie, "Faces in the Crowd" with Milla Jovovich? Here is the summary from netflix:

Milla Jovovich stars in this thriller about a woman who suffers from "face-blindness," the inability to remember people's faces. With the serial killer who caused her condition still on the loose, the woman lives in fear of his return.

I know we have one parent with this condition, and sometimes it seems like some kids have it. thank you is horrible with names and faces - he has a super hard time remembering first names and even now, halfway through the year, is having trouble. We have pushed him so now he knows the first names of at elast a few kids in each class, but if he sees them out of school he has little recall of their names. He knows he goes to school with them, but names? not happening for most of the kids.

I haven't seen the movie (it is on dvd but we only do the instant streaming) but wondered if it gave a good representation of face blindness, and if having more of an understanding might help some of us.

Have you seen it? What did you think of it as far as how it portrayed face blindness? Was it a good movie (even if it didn't show face blindness well)?

Thans!

 

[BusynMember]

I didn't see it, but, like everything else, face blindness (there are some good sites about it) is a spectrum. Some people are so disabled with it that they can not recognize their own faces or their family and how they look. Some, like me, can do that, but it is common for somebody who obviously knows me well to come up to me in a mall and start chatting while I panic thinking, "OMG, who IS this? Who is this? Who is this?" And I hope they drop a clue. Once it was a lady I worked with and saw every day, but I didn't recognize her because she wasn't in her work station for identification and she didn't have her uniform on (she was a nurse) plus she had her hair down. At work the next day she asked, "You didn't know who I was, did you?" I don't even remember my answer. I was mortified. I've also had many encounters where I never do find out who I chatted with for a half an hour If my kid is with me, I may ask her, "Who was that?" Sometimes she knows and always gives me the teen "MOTHER!" eyes, but it is a serious problem. Try doing Mcdonald's when you can't remember the face of the person who just gave you a ten, and others are standing around too...who should you give the change back to? I am especially face blind when people are rather average and normal looking and have no "markers" for me to identify them with, such as flaming red hair or a huge mole on their cheek.

I have become MUCH better now that I know what face blindness is. I automatically study faces very carefully and look for markers for identification purposes. Face blindness is closely linked to Aspergers Syndrome. Now I'm pretty good with names!!!

I think I will try to find the movie and rent it. I can imagine how scary it would be to be assaulted or know a serial killer is on the lose and be face blind. Like the character in the movie, I probably would not really remember how he looked and would have to tell myself, "Beware of ALL men who are 6 foot 2 with brown hair and blue eyes."

Anybody further interested in face blindness, which is more common than we think, can read this awesome site about it. This is where I first found out about it and then went for diagnosis:

Face Blind! Bill's Face Blindness (Prosopagnosia) Pages - Introduction

I would like to add that I am not only face blind, but have no recall about ANYTHING visual unless I am STARING at it. I remember my friend testing my abilities and s he asked me how her living room looked because I was there every day. I couldn't even remember the color of her carpeting. I remembered it was sort of a blue (it was actually green). So, like most disorders, it rarely stands alone. It also causes me issues with directions...I can't remember how I got anywhere so I need to write landmarks and street names very carefully in order to be able to find my way back (and I can't reverse directions to get home so I have to do that in advance). It has made my life very complicated. I imagine it's interesting to somebody who doesn't have it though...lol.

I have never seen a good movie on face blindness. The site I posted in my opinion is the best you'll find on the topic. It's really great.

 

[trinityroyal]

Sounds like an interesting movie. I too would like to see whether it provides an accurate representation of the condition.

My difficult child has some measure of face blindness, compounded by the fact that he only has sight in one eye. Interestingly, he's not aware that he has it. I think he assumes that everyone else perceives faces the way he does.

It took us a long time to figure out that he had face blindness. Because he was enrolled in socialization programs as a very small child, and they had a heavy emphasis on reading facial expressions and social cues, difficult child learned to be very convincing about "reading" people's faces.

I started to catch on that he can't really perceive faces after a number of times when my head was angled slightly toward him, but my face was turned away from him. difficult child reacted based on the emotions he thought were on my face, which he couldn't see at all given my position. It was a huge A-Ha moment for me.

I agree. The site MWM posted is a great resource for learning about it.