Still Alice (2015)

"I find myself learning the art of losing every day. 

Losing my bearings, losing objects, losing sleep, but mostly losing memories…"

If you’re considering suicide, ’Still Alice’ might just give you the push you’ve been waiting for.

When world renowned linguistics professor Alice Howland is diagnosed with Early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease, she attempts to deal with the condition while desperately trying to hold on to who she is.

This is not an easy film to watch. The subject matter is tough to deal with and it doesn’t really let up the whole way through. The film shows us the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease and everything that goes with it. Losing memories, family and, ultimately, who you are. It manages to showcase a realistic portrayal of the disease and shows us how bad it can really get. It deals with the rapid decline of the condition and how everyday life becomes a struggle.

It was never going to be a joy ride of a film and coming in at a little under two hours long, it feels like you’re in the cinema for about a week... You’re forced to take an emotional journey with the characters and it’s not a particularly enjoyable one. 

Probably best having the tissues at the ready.

Julianne Moore won the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as Alice Howland and I definitely think she deserved it. Her portrayal of Alice and how she deals with the disease is heart-breaking and realistic. She humanises the disease and makes you empathise with her and her situation. You really get a sense of how people deal with the disease day to day. She tackles the bigger issue which is trying to stay a human being by holding on to your personality and memories. You really feel that she's struggling through and fighting for every memory and every word. It was so engaging to watch her deal with the disease taking away what she has studied for her entire life - language. She has to battle to remember words and the ability to communicate because it's who she is.

Her transformation from the beginning to the end is so believable that you genuinely forget 
that she's acting, much like Eddie Redmayne did for 'The Theory of Everything' or Bradley Cooper for 'American Sniper', Julianne Moore becomes the character inside and out. She's living it and breathing it.

An inspiring performance from a talented actress.

'Still Alice' honestly and realistically conveys the every day struggles that the disease causes. From something simple as not remembering a word or a sentence to not being able to remember who your children or even who you are. It brings to light so many issues and problems that I never even knew about the disease and puts you into Alice's mindset.

This being said, one of the biggest issues I had with the film was that it feels more like an infomercial or a dramatisation for a documentary rather than a cinematic experience. It’s a hard subject to tackle but it’s a little stale in terms of delivery and story-telling. It’s shot with a lot of realism to bring the issue home but it felt a little like it was simply raising awareness for the disease. Not that raising awareness isn’t extremely important for the condition but it didn’t feel as cinematic as it could have been, I have to look at it as a film as well as it dealing with the very specific subject matter.

For instance, the title is ‘Still Alice’ so it’s obviously about Alice trying to hold on to her life and who she is. However, we jump into the story as the disease is just starting to take hold and we don’t really get an idea of who she really is before the disease. We know who she is in terms of work, life and family but I didn't feel that we got enough of her personality beforehand. That does develop as the film goes on but I’d have liked a little more of her character before jumping into the plot. Julianne Moore manages to pull it back but it's mostly due to her fantastic performance that the film stays together and doesn't fall apart. 

This leads me to my other issue which is that the characters in the film are relatively shallow and two-dimensional. Other than Alec Baldwin, the rest of the cast are actually quite bland and unbelievable. 

Alec Baldwin plays Alice’s husband John Howland and we really empathise and sympathise with him as a character. He delivers a mature, honest and believable performance as we watch him try and care for the woman he loves while trying to lead a normal life with her. You can fully grasp and understand his situation and his frustration, which is a hard thing for an actor to portray without the character coming across as selfish or unloving. It’s really stimulating to watch the chemistry between Baldwin and Moore, it’s so natural and realistic that you genuinely believe their love for one another. It shows up the younger and less experienced members of the cast.

Kristen Stewart is still incapable of emotion since the ‘Twilight’ franchise sucked out whatever life she had in her and her performance as Alice’s daughter Lydia is stilted and wooden compared to the maturer members of the cast. You just don’t believe her as a character or as the actress that she's meant to be playing in the film. She is definitely the weaker link in the cast, despite being a relatively key part of Alice's life. 

The other siblings, Hunter Parish and Kate Bosworth, are totally under-developed and forgettable which is a real shame and a missed opportunity in my opinion. I’d have loved to have seen more of the family environment and how they deal with their mother losing who she is but it’s sort of glazed over in the midst of Alice's situation. 

The marriage of the cinematography and the editing is interesting in ‘Still Alice’ and is utilised well to emphasise the effects of the disease. It’s used to disorientate the audience to get us into Alice’s head. Straight and deliberate cuts through time are used to highlight the passage of time and give us the impression of losing our bearings, which is what Alice is going through. It manages to help us get into the mindset and gives us a better understanding of how the disease works.

Focus is also an important part of that idea. The focus is used to draw our attention inwards, often focusing on Alice's head rather than the outside world, much like the way Alice can't seem to focus on what's going on around her so she becomes lost in her own head. It really gives us the feeling of disorientation that is such an apparent consequence of the disease.

For me, 'Still Alice' raises some hard hitting issues and ideas regarding euthanasia and suicide that are extremely touchy subjects to deal with. It's not really spoiling anything when I say that suicide does crop up in the film and, with a subject matter like this, it's no surprise when it does. The audience seemed split as to whether or not she should go through with it, like they were rooting for the "good guy" to win, whether that "good guy" is life or death it's up to each audience member to decide for themselves but it genuinely makes you think about it. 

Overall, ‘Still Alice’ isn’t an enjoyable experience and I can’t say that I’ll ever watch it again but I'm glad I've seen it. 

It features extremely strong performances from Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin that are, unfortunately, supported by a less than perfect supporting cast. It raises awareness for a terrible disease that deserves more attention but doesn’t quite deliver in terms of great cinema. 

Let's just say I wouldn’t watch it with alcohol, drugs, old people or when you’re feeling depressed…