Decoding Annie Parker

Decoding Annie Parker

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Steven Bernstein
Produced by Steven Bernstein
Keith Kjarval
Clark Peterson
Stuart W. Ross
Ron Senkowski
Johnathan Brownleei
Mary Vernieu
Written by Adam Bernstein
Steven Bernstein
Michael Moss
Starring Samantha Morton
Helen Hunt
Aaron Paul
Music by Steven Bramson
Cinematography Ted Hayash
Edited by Douglas Crise
Production
company
Dorado Media and Capital
Media House Capital
Story and Film
Ubiquimedia
Ozymandias Productions
Distributed by Entertainment One Films
Release dates
  • April 4, 2013 (2013-04-04) (Palm Beach)
  • May 2, 2014 (2014-05-02) (United States)
Running time
 91 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Decoding Annie Parker is a 2013 drama film written and directed by Steven Bernstein. The film stars Samantha Morton, Helen Hunt and Aaron Paul. The film tells the story of Annie Parker[1] and the discovery of the breast cancer gene.

Plot

11-year-old Annie Parker is living the perfect young life, loved by all, and especially by her mother, father, and older sister. But none of them knows that something horrible is stalking their perfect family. On a fall afternoon in 1976, young Annie hears a noise from upstairs. Her mother has collapsed and died, and an agonizing downward spiral begins.

At UC Berkeley a brilliant research geneticist named Mary-Claire King is embarking on something of a personal crusade to uncover the genetic roots of breast cancer. While still in her twenties, she has already made a famous discovery that made the cover of Science—quantifying the genetic variation between humans and chimpanzees.[2] But her conviction that there is a hereditary basis to at least some forms of breast cancer is not widely shared. Nevertheless, her tireless research throughout the 1980s would end in a medical breakthrough—the discovery of the location of the BRCA1 hereditary breast cancer gene—considered one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.[3]

At the age of 19, after the sudden death of her father, Anne marries Paul and soon is pregnant. She struggles to find a way in the world with her equally young but misguided husband and her older sister, Joan Parker who tries to become a surrogate parent to Anne. But, cruelly, Joan contracts the same cancer that killed their mother, and in a few months, she, too, is dead.

Annie is diagnosed with the same disease that killed her mother and sister—breast cancer. It is severe, and surgery and chemotherapy, with all its accompanying difficulties, soon follows. She loses her hair, and if that wasn't enough to endure, her husband, never really mature or stable, has begun an affair with Anne’s closest friend Louise, and leaves her. Ironically Paul is soon diagnosed with cancer and expires shortly before she is diagnosed with a second cancer.

With the help of a young doctor, Sean, and a new friend, Kim, Anne continues her fight. As each tragedy befalls her, she grows stronger.

While Annie struggles, King is pursuing her belief that some forms of breast and ovarian cancer have a hereditary basis. While she captures headlines for her work applying DNA fingerprinting to help reunite "the disappeared" with their families in Argentina, her priority is to map the breast cancer gene.

King focuses on collecting families with a particularly high incidence of breast cancer, suspecting that these cases are most likely to reveal any genetic predispositions. Advances in genetic mapping through the 1980s gradually allow her team to embark on studies to map the location of the BRCA1 gene. Finally, in 1990, King and her team find conclusive evidence linking DNA markers on chromosome 17 with an inherited flaw in a gene dubbed BRCA1. The work was presented at the American Society of Human Genetics conference in Cincinnati, and published in Science magazine a short time later.[4]

Mary Claire King ended up on the cover of Time magazine, and Anne Parker finally had the answer she herself had long sought. Anne Parker happily remarried, and a few years later contracts cancer for a third time. And survives again. And she laughed while being treated, for reasons only she knew and understood.

Cast

Production

Filming began in October 2011 and wrapped in November 2011. Post-production was completed in 2012.[5]

Awards

2014 Milan International Film Festival

Release

The film was released domestically by Entertainment One Films simultaneously in theaters and video-on-demand on May 2, 2014.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Samantha Highfill (2 May 2014). "Meet the woman behind 'Decoding Annie Parker'".
  2. ↑ King, M.; Wilson, A. (1975). "Evolution at two levels in humans and chimpanzees". Science. 188 (4184): 107–16. doi:10.1126/science.1090005. PMID 1090005.
  3. ↑ Davies, Kevin; White, Michael (1996). Breakthrough: The Race to Find the Breast Cancer Gene. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-12025-1.
  4. ↑ Hall, J.; Lee, M.; Newman, B.; Morrow, J.; Anderson, L.; Huey, B.; King, M. (1990). "Linkage of early-onset familial breast cancer to chromosome 17q21". Science. 250 (4988): 1684–9. doi:10.1126/science.2270482. PMID 2270482.
  5. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Decoding-Annie-Parker/218537534833277?sk=info
  6. ↑ Internet Movie Database. "IMDb - Decoding Annie Parker". www.imdb.com/title/tt1464191/. IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 11 October 2014.

External links

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