Still Alice
Forget The Conjuring and Paranormal Activity. The most bloodcurdling movie of the last five years is a quiet drama about a brilliant woman slowly losing everything that matters to her.
Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore: Mockingjay Part I) is a linguist, professor and sought-after speaker. The fiercely ambitious woman raised three children while climbing to the top of her field. She wrote the seminal textbook in linguistics, teaches a popular course at Columbia University and still finds time for date night with her doctor husband (Alec Baldwin: Blue Jasmine).
On her 50th birthday, Alice is going strong, noticing only a few signs of aging. Sometimes she forgets a word when speaking to a class, as well as names. But when she gets lost jogging a well-known campus trail, she worries. Her diagnosis is much worse than the brain tumor she fears. She has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Refusing to be defeated, Alice throws herself into finding ways to keep her mind. But occasional lapses turn into frequent confusion. She can’t hold a conversation. Words slip from her mind just as she needs them. Her own home betrays her, and she finds herself lost.
To her family, Alice’s descent is torture. Their strong, vibrant matriarch is reduced to childlike behavior. Husband John tries to be strong, but he misses his partner and escapes into work so that he can afford his wife’s expensive care and forget that the woman living with him now barely resembles his love. Her children help when they can, but watching her deteriorate means glimpsing their own possible futures.
Poignant, beautiful and utterly terrifying, Still Alice shows us the horror that is Alzheimer’s disease. Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (The Last of Robin Hood) wisely choose to underplay the drama, slowly building on Alice’s deteriorating state. There is no tension to the story, no miracle to save the day. The film peaks in the middle, when Alice breaks down. Thereafter it slowly fades away, mimicking Alice’s journey.
As Alice, Moore proves that she remains one of the best actresses of her generation. Her performance is a slow descent into hell. Everything that makes up a person, her ability to express herself and her memories, is stripped away until Alice is a shell, capable of only the most basic vocalizations. It’s a brutal performance, one that will likely earn Moore the Oscar and one that will leave you weepy and uncomfortable.