page_title: Still Alice
section_title: Critical response
hierarchical_section_title: Still Alice / Reception / Critical response
caption_attribution_description: Toronto International Film Festival 2014
context_page_description: Still Alice is a 2014 independent drama film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland and based on Lisa Genova's bestselling 2007 novel of the same name. The film stars Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, a linguistics professor diagnosed with familial Alzheimer's disease shortly after her 50th birthday. Alec Baldwin plays her husband, John, and Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish play her children, Lydia, Anna and Tom.
  Glatzer and Westmoreland were approached by Lex Lutzus and James Brown to adapt Genova's novel in 2011, when Glatzer had just been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Moore was their first choice for the lead role; she researched Alzheimer's disease for four months to prepare for the part. The film was shot in New York in March 2014, with a budget of $4 million.
  Still Alice had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2014. It was one of several films stolen in the Sony Pictures hack incident and leaked online on November 27, 2014. The film was released theatrically on January 16, 2015, and grossed $43.9 million at the international box office.
context_section_description: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Still Alice has a "Certified Fresh" rating of 85% based on 200 reviews, with an average rating of 7.37/10. The site's consensus reads, "Elevated by a gripping performance from Julianne Moore, Still Alice is a heartfelt drama that honors its delicate themes with bravery and sensitivity." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a score of 72 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
  Moore's acting received critical acclaim. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers wrote of "the blazing artistry" of Moore's performance, which he said was "alive with ferocity and feeling and committed to truth". Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described Moore's portrayal of Alice as "convincing, disturbing and personal", while Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty cited it as being "among her most devastating performances". In a review for The Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote of her "transparent emotional presence", though he felt that "the part [of Alice] barely scratches the surface of her ability". The Daily Telegraph critic Tim Robey felt that Moore's "astonishingly delicate and sad" performance was one of the highlights of her career, and characterized the film as a whole as "gorgeous [and] piercing".
  Empire magazine's David Hughes gave Still Alice 5 out of 5 stars, highlighting Moore's "note-perfect performance" and Glatzer and Westmoreland's "sensitivity and scalpel-sharp precision". Deborah Young, reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter, praised the directors' "restrained, understated approach" to the story, which she saw as "the best insurance against sloppy sentimentality". The Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan attributed the film's success to Moore and Stewart's ability "to keep things honest" despite parts of it seeming "contrived and overly familiar". Peter Debruge of Variety complimented Glatzer and Westmoreland's "dignified" and "personal" approach to the subject matter, as well as their decision to tell the story from Alice's point of view.
  Other critics gave the film lukewarm reviews. A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised Moore and Stewart's performances, but felt that the story was "too removed from life to carry the full measure of pain that Alice deserves". The New Yorker critic Anthony Lane criticized Glatzer and Westmoreland for "flinch[ing]" when it came to showing Alice's deterioration and its effect on her family, and found the film's sentimental aspects "manipulative—and effective". The Austin Chronicle's Josh Kupecki gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, finding it clichéd and melodramatic, and likening it to a public service announcement. Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, described Moore as giving "a four-star performance in a two-star movie", drawing attention to the "intrusive" score and the "maddeningly overwrought and heavy-handed" storytelling.
caption: Moore received critical acclaim and numerous accolades for her performance.
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