Still Alice

At the ripe old age of fifty, renowned American linguist “Alice” (Julianne Moore) is at the top of her game and looking forward to a married life with three grown up children and a grand-child. Then she starts noticing that she is becoming a little forgetful. Those climbing the stairs then forgetting why you went up in the first place moments start to become more regular. She can’t recall the words for her lectures and presentations, indeed she can’t always even recall the topic she is supposed to be speaking about. These aren’t complete memory blackouts, but they concern her enough to go to doctor who confirms that she has early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her husband (Alec Baldwin) and her children rally around her, they do what they can, but in the end it is the distressing dismantling of a life that Moore presents quite poignantly here as her character’s illness worsens and it’s effects on her family resonate quite profoundly. The children themselves prove quite useful in portraying the differing responses to the illness, with independently-minded daughter “Lydia” (Kristen Stewart) who is already having a tempestuous relationship with her mother being one of the powerful litmus tests offered by auteur Richard Glatzer as they come to terms with the situation. There’s an especially effective scene where she essentially creates a trap-door, or exit strategy, for herself and that illustrates just how difficult it is for someone who’s life has always relied on her cerebral abilities, being gradually eroded to the point where reason becomes something blurred and complicated. It does flirt a little with sentimentality, but for the most part it is a thought-provoking, slightly observational, drama that raised quite a few question about our own mortality.