Movie Reaction: Still Alice

Formula: Amour - 30 years

Why I Saw It: I wanted to see what was going to win Julianne Moore her Oscar.

Cast: Julianne Moore dominates this. She is so good. There's a point in the movie when she is watching a video of herself before being ravaged by her disease, that starkly reminded me of how drastic her change is. She deserves all the adulation she receives for this. The rest of the cast truly supports Moore. Alec Baldwin, Kirsten Stewart, Kate Bosworth, and Hunter Parrish all react to Moore and handle the situation in different ways. Baldwin and Stewart are the two more proven actors and get the meatier parts. Bosworth and Parrish are perfectly fine though.

Plot: Alice (Moore) is an accomplished linguistics professor at Columbia. After a moments of forgetfulness, she gets examined to find out that she has early onset Alzheimer's. From there. we watch her deteriorate as her husband (Baldwin) and children (Stewart, Bosworth, Parrish) care for her as best they can.

Elephant in the Room: Is it a performance or a movie? Short answer: it's a performance. I know there's a lot of griping about the Lead Actress Oscar nominees mostly not being in Best Picture nominated movies, but here's an example of there being a good reason for that. Moore's performance is as good as anything you'll see this year. Remove that though, and there's not much of a movie. It's not focused on much else.

To Sum Things Up:
Moore is enough to make this worth watching. She plays the transformation and the fear of what will become of her in breathtaking ways. There were more than a couple moments when I struggled to keep it together (learning the bad news, forgetting who one of her children was, etc.). The rest of the movie leaves a lot to desire. It's not driven by any narrative to speak of. The supporting characters aren't much deeper than what they need to be for Alice. I think of something like The Theory of Everything by comparison. Remove Redmayne's change/Hawkins' ALS and there's still a movie about a troubled marriage and an excellent performance by Felicity Jones. Still Alice is completely dominated by this one thing. It makes for a great performance, yet a movie that's lacking. If you have any family with Alheimers' though, good luck.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend