Still Alice

Still Alice is a modern drama focused on Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), a renowned and successful linguistics professor. She lives comfortably in New York with her scientist husband John (Alec Baldwin), though she is often visited by her three grown children, Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish), and Lydia (Kristen Stewart) who resides in LA. Shortly after her 50th birthday Alice is startled as she begins to gradually lose words and other important details from her life, prompting her to visit a neurologist. She is soon diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's and begins to lose her ability to communicate and be herself as her family watches on.

Directors Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer are clearly comfortable with their partnership as Still Alice is their fifth collaboration, and certainly their largest. There are three main filming styles that govern the film and govern it well. There is the keenly framed, tripod-mounted shooting style that dominates the film as it is representative of the lucid Alice and the world of those around her. In direct and simple contrast is the hand-held and/or focus-heavy shooting of the afflicted Alice. Here, Alice is often shot in close or medium with the world around her being heavily blurred, and often she will only enter frame after a momentary delay, as though she is a stranger. The final style is reserved for flashbacks to her childhood, and these appear to be (as far as I am aware) shot on Super 8mm. These are grainy and vibrantly coloured moments that stand out distinctively from the rest of the film. The score is often centred around a piano and its cautiously slow tones too often feel like the blank spots of Alice's mental state.

In many ways Still Alice is not at all surprising to those with even the most cursory knowledge of either Alzheimer's or Julianne Moore's acting ability, but the extent of both of these is. Alzheimer's is notoriously devastating and Moore famously talented, but the totality of both of these realities is confronting. At first Alice carries herself with the signature confidence, self-awareness and casual poise that's indicative of the inspired decision to cast Julianne Moore, but as her disease takes hold and tightens its grip on her, Alice becomes more (or perhaps less) than forgetful. Her posture slackens, her articulation suffers and so does her ability to focus, as stated earlier Moore's totality in this character's situation is moving and talented. Moore's performance, and the film by extension, treat Alzheimer's without reverence, hate or kid gloves. As Alice herself states in a captivating speech at the end of the second act, "I am not suffering, I am struggling." The supporting cast consisting primarily of Baldwin, Stewart and Parrish as Alice's family struggle alongside. Baldwin especially impresses quietly with his devastation and helplessness apparent in the bevy of short glances he gives Alice's way as she forgets to be who she is. In many ways the woman he loves is dying before his eyes and Baldwin's reaction as John are simply crushing. Within Alice's family there are brimming grievances, but overall no great dramas and barely a classic dinnertime feud, though perhaps because the narrative is so focused on Alice these would become intrusive. Either way, the film's steadfast perspective of Alice is more than enough.

Still Alice doesn't have a clear ending, but rather the closing titles appear and close the audience's perspective on her life, mirroring the effect of the disease. This is a film carried on Moore's capable shoulders, that appropriately and maturely examines a complex familial scenario. Absolutely a must for those in the mood to learn and cry.