Decoding Annie Parker (2014)

I viewed and enjoyed this film. Samantha Morton, as Anne Parker was riveting. Helen Hunt playing Dr. Mary-Claire-King looked tired and yet offered a credible performanceSomething bothered me as I thought about the film. I had read some reviews, one in particular that talked about Dr. King 'confirming' Mary's theory. Another suggested their paths would eventually cross. The meeting of Annie and Dr. King seemed strange in its rushed, happenstance manner. Then there was Dr. King and her life's work which was totally disengaged from any personal connection to Annie. I could not recall other films running on two tracks that never actually linked-up. After all, the very title of the film connotes linkage. The two films remain firmly on their tracks never to actually link at all. Title aside, Dr. King is not decoding Annie Parker, she is decoding for all women. The rushed meeting was the fictional ''glue' since it never happened. Annie and Dr. King met one time only and that was in 2013 at the Seattle premiere of the film. Nor was Annie part of Dr. King's research group likely because they were separated by thousands of miles and hence it is said they lived totally different lives.Assuming Annie, as portrayed, was hell bent on proving her cancer's genetic connection her efforts were noble but bore no fruit. Annie's story on track #1 is solely a story of survival and her 'effort' to learn the genetic truth behind her family's curse. Annie's role is that of an awesome survivor with a 'suspicion' and quest to learn more. It was inspiring but this is not any sort of Lorenzo's Oil tale. On track #2 is Dr. King who is solely credited with discovering the cancer causing gene. During Dr. King's quest she neither met nor communicated with Annie. Yet two shining examples of human endurance and spirit. I give 9 stars to Annie's movie and 7 stars to Dr. King's movie. Two fine movies for the price of one. My hat's off to Annie who has to be the all time poster woman for cancer survival!

"If you knew those codes could you change your future?" Annie Parker (Morton) has watched her mother, father and sister all die of cancer. After dealing with all of that she is told that she too has breast cancer. While going through treatment she begins to wonder why she got it. She starts off on a life long research project to find out if breast cancer is hereditary. At the same time Dr. King (Hunt) is trying to figure out the same thing, only she has to deal with not getting the funding she needs. This is a true story of the almost cure for cancer. Obviously the fact that this movie deals with cancer it will be emotional but not in the way you expect. This movie will make you mad, very mad. Knowing how close Dr. King was getting but at the same time being blocked at the funding level because the powers that be didn't think it was important enough. This was in the 70's when she started. Just imagine where we would be today if she got what she needed! This is an important movie that should be seen. I recommend this. Overall, a very important movie but not a movie to rent for straight entertainment. Morton is great. I give it a B+.

I watched a beautiful, touching, and powerful real life story of a film about trying to find a cure for breast cancer and map the BRCA-1 gene in the '70s called Decoding Annie Parker, whose mother and father, and sister succumbed to cancer at a time when computers were too slow to compile any real data.A brilliantly touching movie, I highly recommend.As a child growing up in the '70s, I found the movie remarkably visceral and stirring.My life was a comedy. I just had to learn to laugh. ~Annie, Decoding Annie ParkerI highly recommend this movie, we are going through a pandemic of cancer in our history, and we must find the cause, whether it's our industrialization, genetic disposition, a combination of a great many things, I feel someday we'll have eradicated cancer, looking back at all those who suffered and died, may all beings be free of suffering.

There is no one definition that describes all cancers. They are a large family of diseases which form a subset of neoplasms, which show some features that suggest of malignancy. A neoplasm or tumor is a group of cells that have undergone unregulated growth, and will often form a mass or lump, but may be distributed diffusely. Six characteristics of malignancies have been proposed: sustaining proliferative signaling, evading growth suppressors, resisting cell death, enabling replicative immortality, inducing angiogenesis, and activating invasion and metastasis. The progression from normal cells to cells that can form a discernible mass to outright cancer involves multiple steps