Still Alice

Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Seth Gilliam, Tom Howland
Directed by: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama
2014

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A successful linguistics professor (Julianne Moore) struggles after being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease.

Review:

Tim:Still Alice is most noteworthy for being the film that finally brought Julianne Moore a much-deserved Academy Award. It seems so bizarre that after a career of remarkable performances, Moore had never broken through and won the industry's top honor. For that reason alone, this is a movie that deserves to be seen. It certainly helps that Moore is actually quite excellent here (this isn't an award given to recognize her impressive career, she earned the Oscar win). This movie also happens to be very, very good.

When I think about this film, my first thought is that it's not an easy movie to watch. Alzheimer's is a miserable, awful disease. It's quite sad to watch someone who is intelligent and articulate slowly forget so much of her life. Alzheimer's robs people of who they are from the inside out. That's never much fun to watch. For that reason, while Still Alice is a very good movie, this is a film I don't have much of a desire to see again. This is a one-and-done type of film.

The cast is fairly strong. Moore is obviously the main attraction. She gives a fairly remarkable performance- she's believable as the successful, driven woman in the beginning. Every stage of her descent into Alzheimer's is believable. It felt like a natural, realistic performance from start to finish. I love how Moore managed to portray the life of an Alzheimer's patient while never losing the humanity of the character she played. It's a great performance. Alec Baldwin was fairly good as her husband. In contrast to Moore, he doesn't have a great deal to do. Kristen Stewart and Kate Bosworth were both fine as Moore's children, although Bosworth did have a few scenes where it felt like she was trying a bit too hard. Still, as a whole, the cast was solid and felt believable as a family.

There were a few memorable scenes sprinkled throughout the film. I thought Moore's speech about Alzheimer's was poignant and memorable. The scene where she's trying to follow the video instructions she made for herself is tense and engrossing. It could have ended stronger, but it was still a well filmed scene. The conclusion of the movie was pretty strong as well.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it didn't make quite as large of an emotional impact as I would have liked. I certainly sympathized with the characters and their plight, but my emotional investment was minimal. I didn't love the characters and not every aspect of the story was equally as compelling. It's not a surprise that this movie was only nominated for one Academy Award- Moore was certainly deserving of a Best Actress Oscar and is the biggest reason to see this movie. Outside of her incredible performance, the movie itself was good but nothing special.

I do want to reiterate that while I might not have loved Still Alice, this is a movie that doesn't just expertly show people with Alzheimer's, it shows the human side, the cost of the disease that those with the disease and their families have to pay. While not wildly entertaining, this movie is an important look at a terrible disease and it's a film you should see.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



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