In U Me Aur Hum (Ajay Devgan, 2008, India), Piya, a 28-year-old woman, is having dinner with her husband, Ajay, when a cake is delivered to their table. Surprised, Piya questions the purpose of the cake and Ajay, thinking Piya is joking, asks her to cut the cake. Her face displays a sense of confusion with the whole situation and she continues to insist that he explains the presence of the cake. Undeterred, Ajay maintains that she is pulling a prank on him and says that they have already discussed the purpose of the dinner yesterday. Piya looks even more confused and, exasperated, Ajay announces that it is their first wedding anniversary. The film cuts to a shot of Piya in close-up. She still looks confused but, immediately, she breaks into laughter and jokes about how Ajay has become the ‘perfect scapegoat’ for her impeccable performance. It is only when Piya is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease that Ajay finds out that she had been genuinely confused at that moment, and that she had been engaged in an act of double performance here – performing the action of putting on a performance.

This scene where Piya performs the notion that she knew that one calendrical year has passed since she got married despite actually unable to remember, a performance of conforming to empty, homogeneous time despite clearly being out of it, is a typical scenario in films about dementia. In A Moment to Remember (John H. Lee, 2004, South Korea), for instance, Su-jin, a 27-year-old woman who too lives with early onset Alzheimer's disease, goes to the doctor as she has been displaying moments of forgetfulness. In her second visit, the doctor begins by asking her what the date is. Su-jin pauses, slightly bemused, and laughs it off, saying that she always loses track of the date. The doctor immediately chastises her for returning to the follow up appointment a week late. He asks her how many siblings she has and she is able to provide the correct answer. She is, however, unable to state the age of her sibling. At first, Su-jin says twenty. Then she hesitates and says nineteen. She laughs awkwardly and explains that she has always been bad with numbers.