STILL ALICE – The Review

Everyone agrees that Julianne Moore is an Oscar shoe-in for her work as a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the sad if predictable STILL ALICE. Moore is a respected and dependable actress and it’s her fifth nomination so this is her year – but she’s lucky that STILL ALICE wasn’t released a year earlier. Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, and Sandra Bullock all starred in much stronger films in 2013 and any of them would likely have beat Moore, whose excellent performance is the only thing that elevates the mediocre STILL ALICE one step above its disease-of-the-week made-for-TV trappings.

At the age of fifty, Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) is enjoying a busy but fulfilling life. She is an acclaimed linguistics professor and a distinguished researcher happily married to a doctor (Alec Baldwin) and the mother of three grown children – Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish), and Lydia (Kristen Stewart). Occasional forgetfulness and confusion start seeping into her daily routine – she gets lost while jogging and can’t remember where the bathroom is. Everyone waves them off as a result of stress or sleep deprivation. However, as Alice’s brain hiccups become more frequent and more severe, (including an awkward one right in the middle of a lecture on memory) a visit to a neurologist reveals a shocking diagnosis: early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Although gradual, Alice’s cognitive decline is horrifying, however the story is not as depressing as it sounds since of course the disease makes Alice appreciate things that matter the most.

This story was told with far more passion and artistry in director Sarah Polley’s 2006 drama AWAY FROM HER which starred Julie Christie. That film was far better-grounded in character and human conflict than STILL ALICE, which is well-intentioned but bland. Moore shines as the steely but brittle Alice, a woman who knows her mind completely and yet, in the end, cannot hang on to it, while Baldwin is fine relating the frustration and impatience of a good man helplessly watching his wife fade away. But the (married) screenwriting team of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland present a pedestrian script that puts the marriage of the two principals on a pedestal. They felt it necessary to establish the tragic dimensions of Alzheimer’s by creating as sharp a distinction as possible between life before and after the disease. In the case of Alice and John, their marriage is a kind of upper-class NYC perfection with the couple cooing at each other as if in a Hallmark card (a scene where they talk between dozens of kisses seemed particularly phony). The disease then becomes a kind of fall from the flawless life and family they had cultivated (though not quite perfect – daughter Lydia seems to be something of a black sheep because she wants to be an actress). STILL ALICE is a must-see only if you need to check off your list for Oscar night, otherwise this is one that can wait until cable or Redbox.

2 1/2 of 5 Stars

STILL ALICE opens in St. Louis January 30th at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater, The Hi-Pointe Theater, and The Chase Park Plaza Cinema