Still Alice (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 101 minutes
Directed by: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, Shane McRae, Stephen Kunken, Victoria Cartagena, Seth Gilliam
KRS Releasing Ltd
Still Alice is an eye-opening drama that is honest and non-sparing in its approach. The adaptation of the novel by Lisa Genova is, above all, a showcase for Julianne Moore, who gives the audience the chance to really understand what someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease goes through.
Moore is Dr Alice Howland, a cognitive psychologist at Columbia, who has a good relationship with her husband and her three children.
One day she starts forgetting words that are everyday jargon for her, or people she has met, and soon the deterioration increases. With each sequence, Alzheimer’s disease continues to spread.
The audience will feel and appreciate the increasing frustration of the main character. Actions she could carry out with ease become increasingly difficult for her to accomplish. Through all this, Alice is aware of what is happening around her, of how her condition is affecting her and how she is acting as a catalyst for those around her.
Moore carries the film with a performance that is brilliant in its subtlety, as she immerses herself in her character.
Still Alice is not an easy movie but Julianne Moore’s performance is enough to blow you away
Still Alice takes a unique perspective as it takes us inside the protagonist’s mindset and we see the world through her eyes. The camera gives us a very personal viewpoint.
The way the disease spreads and grabs hold of Alice, and the audience, is both inevitable and inexorable. The slow deterioration eventually wrings the character and the audience dry.
Still Alice is not an easy movie but Moore’s performance is enough to blow you away. It does not shirk away from its subject matter, but does so without turning it into a tear-eyed kind of soap opera. It’s a film that takes in many perceptions and challenges us to think outside the box as Alice’s condition continues to deteriorate. Despite all the improvements made in medicine, we seem to have no control over this disease.
The film is intimate in its approach as it delivers an element of self-awareness and a very tangible feeling of loss of one’s self and frustration at the change in situation.
The fact that the late director Richard Glatzer had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, provided him with a deep understanding of the debilitating disease – even though it’s different from ALS – that is translated well on screen.
Moore deserves all the awards she has received, including an Academy Award, Bafta and Golden Globe for best actress.
Seeing Alice lose herself, her identity and yet fight strongly to maintain an individuality – that she keeps poignantly to the last frame – is very elegiac.