Movie Review: Still Alice

Still Alice (2014): Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.

Hi. So. In the past, I have sometimes been criticized for not talking about every aspect of a movie. I have often not mentioned set design, sound design, production value, and other things of the sort, choosing instead to focus primarily on the acting, the story, and the directing. I have chosen not to focus on these other characteristics for multiple reasons. One, because I do not consider myself an actual movie critic. I am an amateur. Up until now I have not taken film classes in my college career, so I don't feel like I have the right to be able to identify and critique the finer points of a movie. And two, frankly I feel that these aspects of a movie are usually pretty good. The production value of a movie is usually relatively the same regardless of whether the budget for the film is $1 million or $100 million. However, occasionally a movie will fail so epically on this premise that I have to say something. And that’s where I’m torn on Still Alice. On one hand, the story is heart wrenching and downright terrifying as we see the main character struggle to maintain her humanity as she looses herself to Alzheimer’s disease. The acting is phenomenal. Julianne Moore is receiving a lot of praise for her role as the lead here and rightly so: she plays this character on a level that could be compared to my favorite performance of the year from an actress in Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl. Easily in my top 10 acting roles of 2014 thus far, Moore in chilling as Alice. When I finished this movie, eyes red from tears, I thought this movie was going to be another 10. But then, as I always do, I thought a bit more about the movie, and I realized that it is not a perfect movie. It isn’t even awesome, though it almost is. So, shall we jump into it?

First off, the stuff I usually talk about and, coincidentally, what this movie does right: I already praised Moore and her future Oscar-nominating performance, but she wasn’t the only person worth noting in this movie. Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart (of all people) both put in stellar performances in this 101-minute movie. Actually, in a year of not-so-strong supporting actress roles, Kristen Stewart may even dark horse herself into a nomination for her performance here. Even though her character was one of three children of Moore’s character, this movie is as much about her as it is about the relationship between Moore’s character and her husband, played by Baldwin. While sadly the other two children, played by Kate Bosworth and Shane McRae, have very little material to work with, Stewart and Baldwin do more than enough to keep the movie memorable from an acting standpoint. Also, the story is fantastic. From the most tear-jerking of moments to some very powerful moments of victory for Moore’s character, this movie had everything. Actually, on the topic of brief victories against Alzheimer’s disease, one of my favorite scenes from a movie this year occurred in this movie involving a speech made by an already very Alzheimer’s-stricken Moore. It was a fantastic speech, and a major bright spot on this otherwise darkly terrifying movie. If you notice, I keep saying dark and terrifying. That’s because that’s exactly what it is. You can probably guess what this movie shows you given what I’ve already said about it, so I’ll say the amount of excruciating detail this movie goes into showing the decline of Moore to Alzheimer’s is really terrifying. Anyone who knows someone suffering from Alzheimer’s or has a connection to the disease will really be able to connect with this film and it will be even more powerful to you than it is to someone who has been fortunate enough to have no connection to the disease such as myself. This movie is a tearjerker, no matter who you are or where you come from.

So, why is it not a sure 10? Well, couple of reasons. The primary one is the fact that the movie is shot terribly. Richard Glatzer and company make some horrible and illogical decisions from a cinematography standpoint, which is very surprising. For example, and again not a spoiler, in the first meeting Moore has with a doctor as they are trying to figure out what’s happening to her, Glatzer decides for whatever reason that the best way to show this scene is by giving us a minute-long headshot of Julianne Moore smiling and discussing her symptoms with the doctor. We don’t even see the doctor, who ends up being a rather major character I might add, until the second appointment. What? Who thought that was a good idea? We also get these really awkward fuzzy shots, which I ultimately understood what they were going for with these but to me they made the movie a bit uglier. And led to utter confusion the first time it happened. And another thing; the production value of the movie? The set design? Well, it looked like it was a made-for-TV movie. The production value was horrible. The movie was shot in a very confined space, and the houses where most of the movie takes place were incredibly simplistic in design. Nowadays many directors (it’s basically a standard in Hollywood now) will ad some flair into a house so that we can get a bit of an insight into what the characters are like. Or, the director will have the characters go do something, like get dinner at a nice, real-life restaurant. Something. Anything. But none of that is here, as the whole movie is basically shot in either a generic house, generic college classroom, or a generic doctor’s office. My favorite scene of the movie was about the only time the movie mixed it up from a production value standpoint, where Julianne Moore delivers a moving speech from a -wait for it- generic hotel multipurpose room. Yay variability! But I hope you can kind of see what I mean. When a movie does these things right, you don’t notice them. However, when a movie fails from a production value, you’ll notice. Maybe not in the moment, but if you start thinking about it and reflecting on it, you may notice just how bland the scenery all around the characters are. Here’s an experiment if you don’t know what I mean: go and watch Nightcrawler, then go watch this. Both movies where shot with relatively the same budget, ($4 million for Still Alice versus $8 million for Nightcrawler) but the set design and cinematography of Nightcrawler is so on-point that the city of LA almost becomes a character throughout the movie. Here in Still Alice I would not have known the movie took place in NYC if it weren’t for the characters making reference to the city. Generic. Generic everywhere.

So there you have it. Again, while the production value of Still Alice is terrible, it is an excellent movie. See why I'm torn? I hope you take the time to see this movie, particularly if you know someone who has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. One thing’s for sure: this movie does a phenomenal job at raising awareness for the disease and showing just how terrifying it can be.

The Critique: While the production value is of made-for-TV-movie quality, this cannot take away from an excellent script and great acting from Julianne Moore. An excellent movie.

The Recommendation: a must-watch for anyone with connections to Alzheimer’s disease. And frankly I’d still highly recommend it to everyone else too.

Rewatchability: Moderately High

The Verdict: 8.5/10 Almost Awesome

Oscar Talk: this movie is receiving a huge amount of buzz from the Academy, and for good reason. I foresee an easy nomination for Julianne Moore for Best Actress, as well as a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Kristen Stewart may dark horse, and given the ridiculous nomination size for Best Picture, I would not be surprised if this movie receives a nod for the category as the “official” indie entry for Best Picture. We’ll see. The nominations can’t come soon enough. I want to see just how in-sync I am with the Academy….




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