STILL ALICE     3.5***

 

     Forgetting something can be quite annoying and somewhat stressful at times but slowly losing your memory and agonizingly becoming an empty shell of a person is far worse, and this movie  realistically illustrates what it can be like.

                                                                                             

The story is about a brilliant linguistics professor Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) who slowly begins forgetting things and after a scary situation where she finds herself lost on the very campus where she teaches, she decides to see her doctor and tragicly learns she has Alzheimer's.  After breaking the news to her husband (Alec Baldwin) she confronts her three adult children with the hard reality that she's not going to be herself for much longer.

 

The film is a very intimate look at a brilliant woman who has always used her mind but slowly finds her memory floating away as she finds herself turning into someone she doesn't know. Some of you may not care to watch such a sad movie but at the same time those who do watch it are in for a treat because it's certainly well done and features one of the year's strongest performances. That strong performance belongs to Julianne Moore who  shows why she's one of the best actresses out there and well deserving of winning this years’ Oscar for Best Actress .. She so brilliantly plays the character no matter what stage of the disease she's battling. Whether it's early on when she's giving speeches or towards the end when she struggles with remembering  anything, Moore simply becomes this character and in each frame you feel like you’re watching a real person struggling with the disease. ( What’s even more amazing is that the movie was filmed in 23 days and out of chronological order).

 

The supporting cast is also quite good especially Alec Baldwin in the role of the husband and Kristen Stewart as the youngest somewhat rebellious daughter.

 

There's a straightforwardness to the movie that might feel too blunt were if not for Moore’s heartbreaking performance. Indeed, the movie explicitly shows what a terrible thing it is to watch a mind waste away, and rarely has the tragedy of losing one's inner self to Alzheimer's been conveyed as precisely and powerfully as it is here, both as to the person afflicted and the caregivers.

 

Clark

 

NOTES:   Before Julianne Moore was cast, the part was offered to Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Diane Lane and Nicole Kidman, but they all turned it down….can you imagine their regrets now.