STILL ALICE
US, 2014, 101 minutes, Colour.
Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristin Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parish.
Directed by Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmorland.
It was extraordinary the silence in the cinema as people, we together, watched Still Alice. What were we thinking, what were we feeling? Were we identifying with Alice personally, the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, the fact that she was only 50, that she was a world-class academic and expert on linguistics and was suffering deterioration in her deepest talent? Were we thinking about relatives or friends with Alzheimer’s, trying to appreciate the condition, their feelings? Had we had some experience of care for a person with Alzheimer’s or was this a prospect to come? Watching the film was certainly a personal, sad, even draining experience.
That we felt and thought this way is to the credit of the film, based on a 2007 novel by Lisa Genova, and its very sensitive screenplay by the writers-directors, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (whose previous career focused on features and documentaries on gay issues).
But, of course, it is to the credit of Julianne Moore and her award-winning performance. Julianne Moore has been a significant actress for over 20 years, creating many memorable characters. But Alice is a major achievement. And the screenplay doesn’t stint on showing her experiences, the initial touches of forgetfulness, even when giving a significant national lecture, her groping for a memory to continue. While jogging to Columbia University where she was on the staff, she suddenly is bewildered and does not know where she is.
It is in the ensuing sequences that are important for Alice and for her husband, John (Alec Baldwin) to understand what is happening, that we learned the background for the early Alzheimer’s. She consults a neurologist who does verbal and memory tests, which she is unable to complete successfully. MRI follows, the accumulating of information, and the neurologist explaining to her and John, as well as to the audience, how rare it is to have an early onset, but the physical realities, the genetic inheritance, and the pessimistic, but real, prognosis.
There is great subtlety with which Julianne Moore portrays the initial phase, the growing difficulties, and a most poignant scene where she and John tell their three adult children what is happening, including the genetic possibility for one of the children to have the same experience. In another, also most poignant scene, where Alice visits a home for sufferers from Alzheimer’s, getting a tour, seeing the elderly people, sitting quietly, getting agitated. The nurse giving the tour obviously thinks that Alice is looking at the place for a parent to settle there.
Part of the silence of the audience watching the film was in the intense concentration in watching the details, even small details, of Alice losing the words, the thread of conversation, not recognising somebody she had met moments earlier, unable to read a book, repeating the page, even unable to find the bathroom at the house on the coast where she loved walking along the beach, contemplating the water.
Alec Baldwin is the sympathetic husband who has to sacrifice aspects of his own academic career and promotion - and that is quite a stretch for him as an actor because he always seems a touch cynical, ready for betrayal rather than fidelity. A final scene where he takes Alice to a favourite place for an ice cream and she can only repeat his words is very moving.
Kristin Stewart (Twilight) is Lydia, the younger daughter, who has decided not to go to college, who wants to act in California, finds it difficult to get auditions, with her mother interfering and wanting her to be better educated, with a backup plan. Towards the end of the film, she appears in the final scene of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, with a part of a speech about her hopes and going to the city. Lydia comes to stay with her mother and care for her, the film becoming ever sadder and sadder.
It is surprising, though not really surprising, how tearful one feels writing this review and re-living Alice‘s experiences, the woman and her dignity, remembering Alice gone, but still Alice.
1. The title? The focus on the person, the dignity, identity, despite illness? Despite Alzheimer’s disease?
2. The audience identifying with the story, with Alice? The prospect of Alzheimer’s? Members of the family with the disease? The role of the carers?
3. New York City, apartments, Columbia University? Coast, at the beach? The musical score?
4. The cast, Julianne Moore and her impersonation of a woman with Alzheimer’s?
5. The information for the audience about the early onset, physical deterioration of the brain, growths? The genetic aspect? The development of the disease, the transformation of the person? Slight forgetfulness, greater forgetfulness, being lost, not remembering and not thinking that something had been forgotten, the reliance on others, the disappearance of the personality?
6. Alice, intelligent, her linguistic skills, academic reputation and knowledge, the textbook, world acclaim, the lectures? The guest lecture and her fumbling a word? Aged 50, her aplomb? The beginning to forget, the jogging and lost at the University, absent-minded, her playing of word games and Scrabble to keep our alert? Her memories of her mother and sister?
7. The visit to the neurologists, describing herself, the episodes, the word tests and her failing some, with names and addresses? The interview about herself, her relationship with her mother, the love of her sister, her alcoholic father, his death, no real contact? Meeting John, falling in love, the years of the marriage? Her love for her children? Their achievements, Lydia and her wanting to be an actress, Alice’s visit, their discussion, her mother’s right to interfere? Anna and her marriage? Tom and his medical studies?
8. The tests, the MRI, John and his visit with the neurologist? The explanations? John and his skills in intelligence and research?
9. John as loving, his personal achievements, love for his wife, acknowledging the reality that was to come, patience and care, the effect on his life, the promotion for the Mayo Clinic, the prospect of moving?
10. Anna, her husband, not having any children, age, trying fertility? The success? Her pregnancy, with twins? The visits to her mother? Her antagonism towards Lydia? Her giving birth, letting her mother hold a child? Thomas a doctor, successful? Lydia, not going to college, acting, her father giving financial support, her mother not knowing, her visits, her hopes, auditions? Her coming home to care for her mother, her patience, her mother binding and reading the diary and her being upset, the argument, the apology, on both sides?
11. The poignancy of the scene when Alice and John told the children, the different reactions, Anna checking and finding she had the genetic possibility? Lydia not trying to find out? Alice, the visit to the nursing home, the picture of the elderly, the sitting, no visitors, agitation? The kindly nurse, but thinking Alice was checking for her parents?
12. At home, her jogging, having the ice cream, missing the meal and the appointment, fears that she would embarrass John? The gradual decline, and the details, in the house? At the computer, using Skype for media? Her instructions to herself, when she could no longer answer the questions, and when it happened, having to check the computer, bring it upstairs, her fright, dropping the pills? The previous abilities, cooking, the Christmas meal? Having their help in the house, her being upset?
13. At the coast, reading, with John, on the beach, her going to the lecture for the Alzheimer’s Association, explaining how she used yellow lining pen so that she would not repeat any lines? The success of the speech, even joking about dropping the papers?
14. The importance of memories, her watching the film of her mother and sister? The loss of memories in the loss of personality?
15. Sitting in the Park, walking with John, the having the ice cream together, her repeating his words? Going to the play, seeing Lydia in the Three Sisters and enjoying it? And Lydia reading to her but not comprehending, unable to articulate words, trying to say “love”?
16. The final decline, Alice lost, but still Alice?
