THE smart indie comedy “Diminished Capacity” deals with three kinds of dementia: those relating to aging, concussions and being a Chicago Cubs fan.
Tying those three things together is a task that the witty script does with surprising adroitness. Matthew Broderick plays a memory-challenged Chicago journalist (he’s an editor of comic strips, one of many specific, novelistic touches that elevate the movie above most half-conceived indie dreck) who goes to Missouri to help take care of his forgetful and dangerously addled uncle (Alan Alda).
Uncle Rollie’s hobby is fish poetry: His finny friends snap at bait hooks that are in turn wired to typewriter keys. Reading what the fish have to “say” is a pastime that sounds about as interesting as anything you could hope to do in Missouri.
Rollie has a baseball card of immense value – one of the 1908 Cubs, the last edition of that team to win the World Series, presumably forever – and the enmity of an alcoholic stalker who wants the card, at gunpoint if necessary.
Despite the two leads’ inability to remember what they were just told, each is motivated by lurking memories. The Broderick character, Cooper – whose brain was rattled in a surprising act of chivalry that led to a fight – learns that his ex (Virginia Madsen) is newly single, and immediately jots down this information. Thanks to his memory loss, he’s hesitant about making any sudden moves with anyone.
Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce charm gives way to something snappish and cagey, while Broderick’s fussy stiffness is perfect. Their characters are two small people in a tiny story, but director Terry Kinney and screenwriter Sherwood Kiraly, who adapted his own novel, make sure things are cozy rather than cramped.
DIMINISHED CAPACITY
Wriggly Feel.
Running time: 92 minutes. Not Rated (adult situations). At the Sunshine and the 62nd and Broadway.