If you know about the Oscar win, I think it’s fair to say that Julianne Moore without a doubt stood out in this particular film. If you didn’t. Well… now you do. Expect a really, really gripping performance by Julianne Moore.
The protagonist of this film is Dr. Alice Howland, a successful academic, a mother to grown up children going on with their own lives and a wife to a man (Alec Baldwin) who also works just as much as she does career-wise. That being said, what seems to be a really good picture-perfect life begins to take a downfall when Alice begins to start losing her memory, setting you up for a wave of all kinds of emotions (because this is a drama).
Still Alice is a typical drama that explores the conventions of emotions and complex subject matter. So any action you’ll see in this film will most likely be those associated with emotions.
The focus of this film stays at home, where Alice’s journey of Alzheimer’s disease is followed. Still Alice explores family relationship dynamics as well as familial love. Kristen Stewart portrays worried daughter, Lydia, who works to build the bond on the between her and Alice.
For a film that approaches the subject matter of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as being an adaptation of a book, Still Alice successfully takes an audience through an emotional journey of the protagonist’s problems into problems of our own, whilst also making us think about the values of love, family, and memory. I didn’t cry, but I did feel a wave of emotion hit me in certain parts of the film, and before I left the cinema, I made sure to check those behind me and saw an army of red, puffy faces.
Original article can be found here.
Nadia Cheung 