photo by Dorri Olds
When I first received the invite to screen “Still Alice,” I thought, “Oh, no. Too depressing.” I went anyway because I knew this cast can pick and choose their roles, so there must be something here of value. Boy, is there!
Julianne Moore playing Alice elevates this film to a level that makes it a no-brainer why Moore just won Best Actress at the Golden Globes. The Oscar nominations were just announced, and she gets a chance to win there also. She deserves it.
Alice is a Columbia linguistics professor. She’s happily married to John (Alec Baldwin), and they have three grown children. The youngest is daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart), a willful creative type who wants to find her own way. Anna (Kate Bosworth) is the responsible older and married sister. Their son, Tom (Hunter Parrish), is more of a background character, but he seems just fine — a healthy, happy son.
The first signs of mental illness show while Alice is lecturing a class and freezes. She cannot remember a word. But doesn’t that happen to everyone? Yes, but what about when you begin forgetting conversations you just had? In one powerful scene, Alice becomes confused in her own home. She begins opening all the doors in the house because she can’t remember where the bathroom is.
Alice gets the devastating diagnosis: It’s early onset Alzheimer’s. Moore is so believable in the role, it’s chilling. She communicates through the slightest of movements in her face. We see things from her perspective. She is strong, she has even more stubborn drive than Lydia. “Still Alice” is a movie that shows how valuable our lives are when we stay in the moment and don’t take anything for granted.
Thanks to the strong and sensitive screenplay by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer (who suffers from ALS, by the way), the movie does not feel like a Lifetime channel tearjerker. Lisa Genova also deserves loads of credit for writing the book the script is based on.
It was a thrill to have the opportunity to speak with the actresses from the film for TheBlot Magazine.
