Review of Still Alice (2014) by Tone01 — 26 Dec 2014

A difficult film to dislike, "Still Alice" has its heart and head in the right place. Julianne Moore's performance, as always, is terrific. However, on the whole, it falls flat.

This story of a brilliant, vital women afflicted by a rare, congenital form of early onset Alzheimers fails in not fully exploring the emotion in the relationships between her and family, particularly hubby Alec Baldwin. Adding to the gap between audience and film is an excess of documentary education regarding this awful disease. All that and the redolence of Oscar bait.

Plainly, hubby acts a moron. His motivation in the midst of his wife's swift decline is a plum new job. He literally abandons her to move to Minnesota from New York. Throughout he is neutral by maintaining a cold, clinical outlook. He speaks nary a word regarding the intellectual and emotional loss of a wife he's spent decades beside. The filmmakers, either intentionally or not, portrayed his exit as a convenient way to move on. The tears he sheds before splitting smack of relief, not grief.

It's not only hubby foregoing real emotion. Moore's eldest, pregnant daughter reacts with an "It's okay" after discovering she has the gene and is doomed to a similar fate. While hysteria would push the story into unwanted melodrama, the non-reactive portrayal is similarly unwanted.

Moore's great concern with her youngest daughter is nagging about eschewing acting for the stability of a college education. It is this daughter who volunteers to caretake Mom. An odd final scene finds the daughter reading the play "Angels In America" to a far gone Moore. As if trying to wring something from her she is unable to give, the daughter asks, "What is the play about?" to which Moore haltingly replies, "Love." "That's right. Love," the daughter replies. Saying 'Love' does not infuse a story with the emotion. Showing love does, and it's absent here. Those close to Moore simply look at her with a morbid curiosity reserved for strangers.

Moore's decline is heartbreaking, particularly when a pre-planned suicide fails. It's a shame she's surrounded by matter-of-fact robots.

Audiences should not be required to fill in blanks of emotion between Moore and others. There have been far more affecting Disease of the Week made for TV movies. Disconnecting to emphasize the least important aspects of dealing with a person afflicted by this awful disease is more tragic than this story.