Still Alice

Plot synopsis:
Its Alice's (Julianne Moore) 50th birthday party at a fancy restaurant. She is there with her husband (Alec Baldwin) and children. Her daughter Lydia is unable to come due to an audition.Alice is waiting to be introduced at UCLA as a guest speaker in a Linguistics class. She is world renowned in her field. She starts her talk on how babies learn to speak and past tense irregular verbs. Suddenly, she forgets what she's saying and seems to just lose her train of thought.Later she's in the car playing words with friends. She goes to visit her daughter Lydia (Kristen Stewart) and they go out to eat. Lydia talks about her career as an actress and Alice tries to talk her out of it and back to going to college.Alice comes home to an empty house, (she lives in NYC) and decides to go for a jog. She suddenly stops and forgets where she is. She seems upset and tries to compose herself. After a few minutes she remembers where she is and heads home. Her husband is there and she's upset that he is helping fund their daughter's theater company.Alice goes to the doctor and tells him about her memory problems. He does some memory exercises and asks her about her parents. She does well except for one test. She thinks she has a brain tumor and he decides to do a precautionary MRI.Alice is at home preparing Christmas dinner and doing some practice memory exercises herself. As people arrive she forgets little things like the name of a kitchen utensil. Lydia and her siblings come home also all making small talk. During dinner Alice reintroduces herself to her son's girlfriend Jenny, confusing her, as they've already met.She goes back to the doctor who says her MRI is fine but he wants to do a PET scan to check for early onset Alzheimer's Disease due to her memory issues. Going on with their daily lives, Alice is very upset over the possibility of having the disease. She decides to tell her husband what's going on. He's in complete denial and she has a meltdown.They go to the neurologist together and he gives them the bad news. He wants to test her and her children for the gene. They tell the kids and they take the test. Her oldest daughter Anna (Kate Bosworth) is positive (meaning she will eventually develop the disease). She has been going for fertility treatments and is happy that at least they can test the embryos for the gene.Alice sits with her boss and they read reviews from her students who say bad things about her and the course. She tells her boss she has a medical issue and comes clean. She wants to stay as long as possible in the department.After a jog she, goes to Pink Berry for frozen yogurt by herself and when she gets home John is upset because she forgot about important dinner plans. He was worried about her.Alice goes to check out a nursing home for the elderly with Alzheimer's under the pretense of worrying about her parents. She writes a note to herself in her phone with basic questions such as what is the name of her oldest daughter, and then records herself talking to herself (to be watched later) telling herself to swallow a bottle of pills to commit suicide. In the cell phone note it says to watch that video when she can no longer answer the basic questions.She now has to wear a bracelet that says memory impaired. She is let go from Columbia and she and John go to their beach house. They laugh and reminisce about their lives together. Later, she practices answering the questions on her phone. She is becoming increasingly forgetful, asking John repeatedly about when he is going on a conference and when Lydia is coming. They are supposed to go running but she cant remember where the bathroom is and wets her pants. She cries as she no longer remembers where she is.John has to leave for a conference so Lydia comes to stay with her. Alice tells her a list of things she wants to see before she can't anymore, including Lydia going to college. She decides to read one of her plays that has to deal with AIDS it gives them something to talk about. While going through the plays though, she comes across Lydia's journal and reads it, resulting in a fight.Anna is pregnant with twins. She and Lydia get into a fight over Alice. Alice remembers that she fought with Lydia but doesn't know what it was about. Lydia apologizes to her for snapping, even though Alice doesn't know what shes talking about. They have a heart to heart about what Alice is going through.They go to her play the next night and after the show when they go backstage Alice doesn't recognize Lydia as her daughter. They go back to the doctor with concerns about the pace she is deteriorating. She can no longer remember what a highlighter is for example. She gives a speech about the disease to the Alzheimer's Association that her family is able to watch hoping for a cure.John is offered a position at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She wants him to delay the job for a year but he can't take off a year for financial reasons. He also doesn't want to take off a year and be at home with her watching her deteriorate. She tries to answer the questions on her phone and can no longer spell the month October. She wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to the kitchen, and is frantically looking for her phone. She takes everything out of the drawers and John goes to her she's panicking because she doesn't have her phone which goes off every morning at 8 to ask her the questions.Anna goes to see her. Alice thinks she's her sister at first. John finds her phone - it was in the freezer with the ice cube trays. Alice thinks she was only looking for it the night before but it had been a whole month. She can't remember how to tie her shoes or what to do with toothpaste. John wakes her up in the morning to help her get dressed. They go to see Anna in the hospital as she just had the babies but her husband is afraid to let her hold them. Back at home they are all trying to figure out what to do. She has a carer now - Elena. Alice is skyping with Lydia and Elena isn't there that day, leaving her all alone. She opens up the video she recorded of herself and hears the instructions about swallowing the pills. By the time she gets to her bedroom however she already forgets what the instructions were so she has to go back downstairs and watch it again until the time comes where she actually needs to bring the computer with her. As soon as she goes to take the pills Elena arrives and she drops them all, forgetting what she was even doing in the first place.John and Alice go to Pink Berry. She can't remember what flavor she usually orders and doesn't recognize Columbia. Lydia has moved back home to NY to help take care of Alice while John leaves to take the job in Minnesota.In the final scene, Lydia reads Alice a story (or monologue from a play?) and as she reads it Alice flashes back to happy times. Lydia asks Alice if she knew what it was about. Alice cannot speak well anymore, and mumbles that it was about love. They hug and we are to presume that Alice continues to deteriorate.

Tags: thought-provoking

Review:
And while both Baldwin and Stewart have taken the occasional misstep in their respective pasts, both of them once again showed without a doubt their acting abilities and scope, a word linguistics professor Dr. Alice Howland used, albeit with great difficulties, to describe her daughter Lydia (played by Stewart) in one point of the film.And what a performance by Julianne Moore that was!
The music is often intense and minimalistic, it feels like it is just an addition to the already rich environment the characters find themselves in and I would love to see at least a nomination at the Oscars for Eshkeri, although I highly doubt it.So, to wrap it up in a nutshell: Still Alice is a wonderful film, an intimate and fascinating study in the field of family drama, and one of the year's best.
I definitely hope to see some awards buzz mainly around the cast - both Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart deserve it for their delicate and supportive portrayal of husband John and youngest daughter Lydia, respectively, who never gave up on Moore's Alice.
And Julianne Moore - well, what can I say - her brutally sad and honest portrayal of Alice deserves to go down in the books of top-notch acting and she will reap the fruits of her work a long time from now (well, mostly, at the end of February, I hope).So it is a nine out of ten stars from me, only because I felt there could have been more screen time for the other children in the Howland family, and therefore the film could have been at least 10-15 minutes longer.
But solely on Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart's impeccable acting, I say this film is among the very best in the subject and also among the best titles this year.
If you have lived with the loneliness and the torture of watching someone you love lose his or her mind this movie may just give you the strength to go on.Julianne Moore's performance is particularly compassionate.
Still Alice does just that.Taking an exceptionally verbal and smart person and giving her early onset Alzheimer's and watching how she deals with it and how she feels about it made this an exceptional film.
So does the always-excellent Julianne Moore, who outdoes herself in an Oscar-worthy performance.The movie's full of highlights: the Skypeing between mom and daughter Kristin Stewart, the relatively healthy Julianne leaving a video for her much sicker self to discover; the question only one person asks: "How does it make you feel?" And extra credit for the double use of Lyle Lovett's "If I Had a Boat.".
As an audience we sometimes tend to look away or find ways to ignore people with mental illness, and many films do so by focusing on the reaction of the rest of the family or on the loved ones as if the main character has lost his or her personality.
It's not just about the struggle of Alice (Moore), it's also an in- depth and informative medical drama that not only breaks your heart, but provide valuable information and sensitivity to anyone who may know or will know someone in the future.The film tells the story of Alice, a brilliant professor that is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's disease at the age of 50.
Still Alice tells the story of a Columbia cognitive psychologist diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease played by Julianne Moore who in my opinion gave the best performance of her career.Kristen Stewart and Alec Baldwin also give very good performances and I think that Ms.Stewart successfully shed the "Twilight" vampire stereotype.Just like any disease, your fight is as strong as your support system.
Not only Alice's but Julianne Moore's support system is strong as well with a supporting cast of Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish, and a score that never has the audience wondering about their emotions but has them focused on Alice's.An amazing movie I recommend it to everyone.
Forgetting something has to be the most annoying and stressful thing that a person could have, but losing your memory by a disease and becoming coming pretty much brain dead is even worse and this movie plays it out very well, because the movie feels real and not fake like other movies that try to do that.The story is about a Linguistics professor in a loving marriage with three grown children starts to forget certain words.
Still Alice has to be the most extraordinary film that I watched this year, in a way that the movie could had scenes where it would have dragged out or slowed down extremely, but that all was over shadowed by the amazing performance from a Oscar worthy Julianne Moore and the fantastic writing.Julianne Moore takes this role has a mother who slowly losing her memory by Alzheimer's disease, and Moore knocked it out of the park as she makes a beautifully crafted performance that just boosted up her career as a actress.The cast members like Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin and Kate Bosworth all did fantastic performance as well.
The movie to me isn't like the best movie of the year or of all time, the movie falls into the great, not into the brilliant.Overall "Still Alice" has fantastic acting from Moore and from the other cast, great directing and writing.
It also highlighted the special tragedy when someone who has built a career as a communicator falls prey to the affliction."Still Alice" should, by contrast, carry the label "Sanitized for your protection." Everyone involved is highly attractive, articulate, compassionate and virtually devoid of any flaws that would mark them as human.What's left is a sensitive and appealing performance by Moore as Alice's mind fades from early onset Alzheimer's; her character has just turned 50.
Julianne Moore received deserved acclamation for her magnificent work, but the rest of the cast also brings perfect performances, highlighting Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart.
"But this isn't fair." Lydia Howland (Kristen Stewart)Early-onset Alzheimer's is definitely not fair for anyone, especially 40-year old Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), noted linguist on the Columbia faculty.
Okay, let me just say, Julianne Moore's performance is brilliant in the film; she captures the fear, sadness, helplessness and perseverance of an Alzheimer's patient with tact.Other than Moore's acting, 'Still Alice' felt quite bland and underwhelming to me.
It's unquestionable that the subject matter, Alzheimer's, is a worthy topic, and accurately portrayed as far as it went.But as a 'best of 2014' movie it IS NOT.First a stereotypical Hollywood family, secondly a character (Alice) we really don't know very well until after her mental state starts to go awry, third a marriage we also don't know very well although Alec Baldwin does a decent job with the script he has.
This and the curious lack of a plot and despite the sadness of the story itself, makes for a very tedious viewing experience, especially towards the end.It's ironic that a film dealing with Alzheimer's Disease should turn out so forgettable.
I can't comment as to the veracity of the harrowing toll of Alzheimer's, although I do agree with others that this film feels sanitised, but the piece falls way short of the magnificent acting turn by Julianne Moore which props it up.It reminded me of Cake in this respect, in that a powerful turn of events which could speak for themselves is undermined by shoddy, obvious direction and some bad casting decisions.
Now acting is what make Still Alice immensely watchable and Julianne Moore gives the performance of her life time.Still Alice tells story of an English professor whose life changes after she is diagnosed with Alzeimer's disease.
Based on the novel by Lisa Genova, Richard Glatzner and Wash Westmoreland's Still Alice is the story of Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), a fifty-year-old Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University who has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Whether it's early on when she's giving speeches or towards the end when she can't remember anything, Moore simply becomes this character and there's not a single frame where you feel as if you're not watching a real person struggling with the disease.The supporting cast is also quite memorable with Baldwin really standing out in the role of the husband.
As a film about Alzheimer's Disease, it is a lot less interesting and involving than Sarah Polley's AWAY FROM HER (2006), which featured Julie Christie depicting the onslaught of the condition, and like Ms Moore gaining an Oscar nomination for her work.STILL ALICE, though well-meaning, is a lot more ponderous than Polley's movie.
When Alice suddenly finds out she has early Alzheimer's disease, it greatly effects the whole family.It's undoubtedly a well made and heart-wrenching film; with impressively calculated directing and strong performances from all of it's cast (especially Moore, who drives the entire film).
Championed by a truly memorable performance from one of the most beautiful, admirable & incredibly talented actresses of our time, Still Alice is a poignant, melancholic & heartbreaking tale that's neatly crafted & sensibly narrated but what truly makes it an emotionally resonant & visually engaging cinema is the fabulous lead show by the lovely Julianne Moore.Based on Lisa Genova's novel of the same name, Still Alice tells the story of Alice Howland; a happily married linguistic professor with three children, who finds out that she is suffering from an early onset Alzheimer's disease.
The plot covers the struggle she & her family undergoes during the progression of the disease as she slowly begins forgetting words, locations & even her loved ones.Written & directed by Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland, the film keeps it entire focus on Alice from start to finish & even though it sometimes carry the usual sentimental approach these stories usually rely on, the good thing here is that Still Alice isn't entirely dependent on it.
The technical aspects are finely carried out & although there isn't anything special about them, there isn't anything to complain either.Coming to the performances, Still Alice features a commendable cast in Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth & Hunter Parrish, and although the supporting work is reliable, Moore's performance here is so remarkable that she overshadows everything else that exists in the film.
Baldwin brilliantly chips in as her husband while Stewart, Bosworth & Parrish stand in as her children & do a fine job in their given roles.On an overall scale, Still Alice tackles a sensitive subject with sensible compassion & presents Julianne Moore in sublime form.
The camera work makes you believe that Moore is trapped in her own world and becomes more trapped as her disease progresses, the close ups and camera movement bring her affliction to life and you can really sympathize with her loss of memory.The film directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland details a college professors (Juliane Moore) struggle with the early onset of Alzheimer's disease as she fights to maintain a life reliant upon her intelligence and intellect.
The speed with which she loses the memories she holds dearest have a profound affect upon her husband (Alec Baldwin) two daughters (Kate Bosworth & Kristen Stewart) and son (Hunter Parrish), as they struggle to come to terms with Moore's Illness.This is unfortunately the only thing impressive about this film, the other characters seem to be ignored in a way which is puzzling.
The test of realism in a movie like this — the thing that would separate it from a conventional, made-for-television disease melodrama — is whether you can imagine lives for the secondary characters when they aren't on screen." Whether the secondary characters are undeveloped or not, it's Julianne Moore's superlative performance that carries the film.
At one point in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's "Still Alice," our titular character, played by Julianne Moore, actually states "I'd rather have cancer," echoing what I have long told my friends when we discuss certain diseases.
However, with all the films concerning cancer, cancer treatment, and the effects the illness has on people and families, remarkably few films have put Alzheimer's under a magnifying glass and showed the agony that entails with its diagnosis and eventual progression.Thankfully, the writing and directing team of Glatzer and Westmoreland are up to the challenge, and they are grateful to have Moore under their belt as somebody who can bring life to such a disease.
This movie is about a renowned linguistics professor and her struggle to cope with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, but not just what she had to cope with but also the effect on her family, very powerful and moving.I Have Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and I could relate to most of what Alice was going through, very well acted by Julianne Moore.
It's one thing to see Alice struggling on her own, but a whole new kind of heartbreak to see it affect husband John (Alec Baldwin) as well as her three grown children (played by Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, and Kristen Stewart).
Saw 'Still Alice' to see how Julianne Moore's universally praised performance would fare and also to see how the film would do portraying an illness as cruel as Alzheimers.
Still Alice follows Alice(Moore) and her family(Stewart,Baldwin) as they deal with her early onset Alzheimer's disease.
With a truly memorable performance by one of the most beautiful, wonderful and incredibly, most talented actresses of all time, Still Alice is a melancholy and touching tale which is perfectly well executed and realistic.Based on the novel by the same name written by Lisa Genova, Still Alice tells the story of Alice Howland; a professor of languages, married with three children, who discovers she is suffering from a disease that seems to be Alzheimer and later is confirmed that it is.The plot deals with the struggle that she and her family suffered during the progression of the disease, as she slowly begins to forget words, locations and even their loved ones.Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the film maintains full focus on Alice from start to finish despite using an usual sentimental approach in these stories.Still Alice features an interesting cast with Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish, and although the support work is good, Moore's performance here is so remarkable that it overshadows everything else in the Movie although Baldwin has played her husband brilliantly, while Stewart, Bosworth & Parrish play the role of their children and end up doing a good job.As a final note, Still Alice deals with a sensitive subject with compassion and sensible and features Julianne Moore in a sublime way.It's an amazing performance, in every scene she enters viewers brains and we feel her pain.I did not expect it to end on a happy ending, the ending is predictable but it very realistic, please let Julliane finally win the Oscar, being robbed 4 times is too much.
What makes it different from other films about dementia, such as "Iris" (2001) and "Away From Her" (2006), is that, whereas the earlier works looked at the illness in old age, the eponymous Alice Howland is just 50 when she is diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer's Disease.
The situation is particularly tragic both because Alice is a professor of linguistics and each of her three children has a 50/50 chance of becoming a victim.There is no way that such a movie is going to have a happy ending, but it is compelling watching because of an excellent script and a terrific performance by Julianne Moore in the title role.
I think Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart needed more scenes together, that's my only real problem with this movie, it's ninety minutes long but it easily could have gone on for another twenty to develop these two characters relationship, it ends with the two of them together but I would have liked to have seen this continue some more, Stewart had great potential in this role but she was sadly underused, and the credits came up too soon.
This kind of film couldn't have possibly worked unless every actor gave one hundred percent, and thankfully everyone did, Julianne Moore delivers a breathtaking performance that got her the Academy Award she always deserved, and she has a great cast to support her, with some very powerful scenes with Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart that add an extra layer to Alice that was very necessary.
The film stars Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, a linguistics professor at Columbia diagnosed with familial Alzheimer's disease.
Alec Baldwin plays her husband, John, and Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, and Hunter Parrish play her children, Lydia, Anna and Tom.Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) is a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia University.
Proving once again why she is one of our greatest living actresses, Julianne Moore earned a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her work in "Still Alice," a poignant tale of a 50-year-old linguistics professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's.
But it seems to me an essential movie, one that opens pathways to understanding while at the same time engaging us in a very human drama on an issue so many of us will one day have to deal with, either as a victim or the loved one of a victim.Incidentally, "Still Alice" makes a fine companion-piece to the equally impressive "Away From Her," a 2007 film on the same topic with Julie Christie a match for Moore as the Alzheimer's-afflicted main character.
As depressing as it is to sit through a full movie with conditions like that, the film manages to be pretty inspiring as well, while also being extremely well acted.We know right off the bat that the heart of the story lies with Alice's relationship with one of her daughters, Lydia, played by Kristen Stewart.