HitFix
TORONTO – Julianne Moore has already had quite a
year. In May, she surprised many by taking the best actress honor at the
Cannes Film Festival for David Cronenberg’s “Map to the Stars.” On Monday night, “Still Alice” premiered at
the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and it may feature one of the finest
performances of her already illustrious career.
If you were to read a short synopsis about “Alice,” an adaptation of Lisa
Genova’s 2007 novel, you might be slightly concerned. The film introduces
us to Alice Howland, a Columbia University professor in linguistics who has
balanced a successful career with a happy marriage and three grown
children. She’s just turned 50, but notices that she’s starting to forget
things. Specific words are dropping out of her mind. She’ll be in the
middle of a lecture and forget a phrase or subject matter. Eventually she
goes to a neurologist who reveals she early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s rare
for her age, but it’s a familial condition she likely inherited from a father
she rarely saw in his later years. Rapidly deteriorating, Alice has to
decide how she’ll live out the rest of her life knowing she’ll be a burden to
the rest of her family.
In the hands of the wrong director(s), “Alice” could be overly melodramatic
and laced with saccharine moments meant to force a happy ending. Richard
Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland won’t let that happen. The duo behind the
critically acclaimed “Quinceanera” let “Alice’s” narrative unspool in as
restrained a manner as possible. There are no unbelievable hysterics.
There are no self-aware screaming matches. Instead, the focus is on
Moore’s heartbreaking depiction of a woman slowly losing her focus, her memory
and, to some extent, herself.
Moore’s performance here is reminiscent of her breakthrough role in Todd
Haynes ‘ “Safe” and her Oscar-nominated turn in Stephen Daldry’s “The
Hours.” In each scene she peels a little bit more of Alice away as the
emotional pain of the disease takes its toll. It is incredibly subtle work
that has to have been painstakingly thought out. You only realize this,
however, walking out of the theater. Moore won’t let you see her working
behind the curtain. Another Toronto debut, “The Theory of Everything,” has
earned raves for Eddie Redmayne’s stark transformation into Stephen
Hawking. Moore’s work here is just as transformative as Redmayne’s, but
her arc is mental rather than physical. As anyone who has a relative or
friend who has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease knows the Alice we meet at the
beginning of the film will not be the Alice we meet at the end. And
because of that the film lives and dies on Moore’s portrayal. She succeeds
smashingly.
Glatzer and Westmoreland put an accomplished ensemble around Moore to play
Alice’s family including Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, Kristen Stewart and Hunter Parrish. Stewart, as Alice’s
youngest daughter, is the family member who seems to be affected by her
mother’s deterioration the most (and earns the most screen time), but all of
the actors clearly know they are there to support Moore. This is Alice’s
story and no one else’s.
Below the line, cinematographer Denis Lenoir avoids the Hollywood sheen
instead composing a delicate and natural look. Ilan Eshkeri (“The Young
Victoria”) deserves a special mention for his beautiful score that also avoids
unnecessarily pulling the audience’s heartstrings.
Read more at
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/review-julianne-moore-is-shattering-in-wonderfully-restrained-still-alice#UqAryfjUqVxsjJs4.99
The Hollywood Reporter
With some five million Americans (and 36 million world-wide) living with
Alzheimer’s disease, the warm, compassionate but bitingly honest Still
Alice will touch home for many people. The toll the disease takes on the
life of a brilliant linguistics professor is superbly detailed by
Julianne Moore in a performance that is one of her career
highs, driving straight to the terror of the disease and its power to wipe out
personal certainties and identity. Written and directed by Richard
Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the screenplay is
faithful to Lisa Genova’s best-selling novel
which has a fan base of its own.
Rather than focus on the destructive effect of the disease on relationships,
the drama dives deep into how one woman experiences her own deteriorating
condition, placing all the emphasis on Moore’s face and reactions, her
vulnerability seesawing with her strength. This insider’s account would be a
tall order for any actor to fill without resorting to sentimentality or falling
into the obvious, but she never loses control of the film for a second, with
able support from Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth
and Hunter Parrish as family members. The involvement
of the Alzheimer’s Association and executive producing names like
Christine Vauchon, Maria Shriver and
Trudie Styler will offer an additional leg up, although
word-of-mouth should provide the strongest incentive for audiences leery of the
topic.
Alice Howland is a vivacious, charming 50-year-old New Yorker and a respected
intellectual who is a precision communicator. Her loving husband John (Baldwin)
calls her the smartest, most beautiful woman he’s ever met, and their three
grown children Anna (Bosworth), Tom (Parrish) and aspiring actress Lydia
(Stewart) are, if not success stories, at least making their way in life. Alice
has it all—until she begins to forget words, which are her livelihood as a
Columbia linguistics teacher, and worse, starts to lose her bearings in familiar
places. She’s frightened enough to consult a neurologist who rules out a brain
tumor, but hypothesizes early-onset Alzheimer’s, a rare form of the disease that
strikes people under 65.
Alice’s first reaction is to hide it, but after getting confused about a
dinner guest, she makes her husband privy to her fears. As her doctor tells them
bluntly, her disease is genetic and the chances of their children contracting it
are 50%. It falls on the family like a bomb, especially when one of the kids
tests positive for the rogue gene. But this bad news is quickly sidelined by
Alice’s own mental decline as the disease makes terrible, swift progress. While
her family tries to cope with the situation, or miserably fails to do so, the
cast’s ensemble performance brings out their true colors, which include some
surprising role changes.
Despite a 2-hour running time, the drama is swift-moving, perhaps because the
viewer dreads the disease's progression and wishes time would stop for poor
Alice. But it doesn't stop and step by step she descends the cognitive ladder,
not suffering so much as struggling to stay connected. In one stand-out scene,
she stumbles onto suicide instructions she has left for herself on her computer.
Though this is one of the film's most intense scenes, the directors are able to
slip in a moment's humor to lighten things up.
Not all is doom and gloom here. Another key scene has Alice invited to
address an Alzheimer's conference. Her anxious preparations end in a triumphant
monolog about her condition that is truly touching.
Westmoreland and Glatzer have created drama around the porn industry (The
Fluffer), the Mexican community in Los Angeles (Quinceanera) and
Errol Flynn’s last fling with a teenage girl (The Last of Robin Hood.)
Still Alice has a concentration and urgency in the telling that the
other films lack. Not directors known for daring cinematic fireworks or
experimentation, here they tackle a subject where a restrained, understated
approach is the best insurance against sloppy sentimentality. It pays off
handsomely in the film’s closing moments, a poignant, poetic confrontation
between the generations that draws the best from Moore and reveals unexpected
depth in Stewart. The film's extremely personal feeling is surely related to the
fact that Glatzer directed it while undergoing a health crisis of his own after
being diagnosed with ALS and having to co-direct the movie on an iPad using a
text-to-speech app.
Tech work remains humbly in the background, all in the service of keeping the
spotlight focused on Moore and mimicking her feelings with an out of focus
camera, costumes she no longer chooses herself, and so on.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/still-alice/review/731334