Still Alice is a troubling film. Not because it's about Alzheimers, but because it isn't. Not really.
Still Alice is based on a novel of the same name about a 50 year woman who is struck with early onset Alzheimers. That happens of course. And it is tragic. But a novel is fiction. In this case, the author has created an extraordinarily successful academic whose speciality is linguistics . She begins to lose the 'words' that have defined her life, and so begins her inevitable decline. I have only read summaries of the novel, but as in the movie, author Lisa Genova has given her an equally successful academic husband, three talented grown children, a brownstone in New York, and another rustic ocean-side home at the Cape. It's a perfect life , as the character admits, but she is still a fictional character.
And the movie based on the novel is even more of a fiction. Alice and her husband Johnare Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin,—-both fine actors —-but that's not the point. They are Hollywood stars who come with celluloid glamour by definition. Our identification with those impossibly beautiful people is not with any commonly known reality . And this doesn't even begin to describe their three perfect children. The only only one who might not fit the mould is Lydia, the slightly rebellious ('I don't want to go to college to study acting; I'm going to follow my dream in LA') youngest daughter—- played by Twilight's 'it' girl of the day Kristen Stewart. Of course, one can make this criticism about any film 'story', but the point here is that Alzheimer's by now is a known reality for most of us in some way or another, and casting beautiful, famous stars detaches us from the true horrors of losing those we love to this horrible disease.
Alice and her family 'have it all' in the novel and more than everything in the movie. The story that this movie tells about Alzheimer's is not even close to what, by now, most of us have experienced in some form. True, this film deals with early onset; but that is still a fairly rare form of this most devastating disease. The Alzheimer's that those of us who live in the real world experience is not a tragic attack on the relatively youthful and still beautiful . Let's be frank: the Alzheimer's that most of us know strikes old people —spouses, parents , relatives , friends . We may love them but once struck they are not often very attractive or vital. They can't take care of themselves, they swear and shout, they are often a danger to others and themselves and , frankly, they can drive us crazy. Plus we often have complex past relationships with them that can make care-taking anything from difficult to disastrous. Juliane Moore repeats things, gets a bit pale and wander-y and has one - quite manageable - outbreak of anger. That's Alzheimer's if the victim and their caretakers are very very lucky. And luck includes not only the course the disease may take but the resources —-emotional, social, and of course financial —-that are essential to let us be our best selves as we try to look after those with a disease that may go on for years.
Still Alice doesn't completely shy away from the difficulties. Alice's husband basically deserts her with the 'she wouldn't want us to be a burden' argument so he can move on to a big job of a at the Mayo clinic. But the wayward daughter comes home to look after mom; in the final scene she reads a piece of literary text to Juliane Moore(still looking pretty damn good). When she asks her mother what's its about, Alice finally manages to get out one word —-'love'.
So that's our lesson for the day. And it strikes home as we , as a society, struggle with questions of 'death with dignity' and assisted suicide. Alice, as her coherent intellectual self , planned a way out—- a video that would direct her Alzheimer's self to a lethal stash of pills she could access when she had come to a certain point—-so that she wouldn't lose herself, so that others would not have to lose the Alice that they knew and loved. In the novel and the film her perfect finale is complicated by the Alzheimer's Alice's inability to understand the directions of her former rational self. She is saved, literally, by the bell at the front door, but the message is clear. Suicide, in whatever form, is not the way out. There is always something worth living for.
And ideally , we would all hope so. We would all like to feel that suffering can have a point. That if we are struck by some calamity and are loved, suffering can be bearable—that suffering itself might have dignity. And the reverse, that the suffering of another can offer us an opportunity—the opportunity to love when it is not easy and there are few of the obvious rewards. Life should not be just pleasant but rich, and that richness can be found in pain as well as pleasure.
I want believe to that is true. But I am not persuaded by what Still Alice presents. I have a good life, I'm fortunate; but I have no faith that I'd be able to endure (whether I am the victim or the caretaker) the horrors of this disease. I don't want a fiction. Or at least I don't want a comforting one. Give it to me straight; if it's a story, I want one that is as tough as it can get. And that, by a a long stretch, isn't Still Alice
Still Alice is based on a novel of the same name about a 50 year woman who is struck with early onset Alzheimers. That happens of course. And it is tragic. But a novel is fiction. In this case, the author has created an extraordinarily successful academic whose speciality is linguistics . She begins to lose the 'words' that have defined her life, and so begins her inevitable decline. I have only read summaries of the novel, but as in the movie, author Lisa Genova has given her an equally successful academic husband, three talented grown children, a brownstone in New York, and another rustic ocean-side home at the Cape. It's a perfect life , as the character admits, but she is still a fictional character.
And the movie based on the novel is even more of a fiction. Alice and her husband Johnare Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin,—-both fine actors —-but that's not the point. They are Hollywood stars who come with celluloid glamour by definition. Our identification with those impossibly beautiful people is not with any commonly known reality . And this doesn't even begin to describe their three perfect children. The only only one who might not fit the mould is Lydia, the slightly rebellious ('I don't want to go to college to study acting; I'm going to follow my dream in LA') youngest daughter—- played by Twilight's 'it' girl of the day Kristen Stewart. Of course, one can make this criticism about any film 'story', but the point here is that Alzheimer's by now is a known reality for most of us in some way or another, and casting beautiful, famous stars detaches us from the true horrors of losing those we love to this horrible disease.
Alice and her family 'have it all' in the novel and more than everything in the movie. The story that this movie tells about Alzheimer's is not even close to what, by now, most of us have experienced in some form. True, this film deals with early onset; but that is still a fairly rare form of this most devastating disease. The Alzheimer's that those of us who live in the real world experience is not a tragic attack on the relatively youthful and still beautiful . Let's be frank: the Alzheimer's that most of us know strikes old people —spouses, parents , relatives , friends . We may love them but once struck they are not often very attractive or vital. They can't take care of themselves, they swear and shout, they are often a danger to others and themselves and , frankly, they can drive us crazy. Plus we often have complex past relationships with them that can make care-taking anything from difficult to disastrous. Juliane Moore repeats things, gets a bit pale and wander-y and has one - quite manageable - outbreak of anger. That's Alzheimer's if the victim and their caretakers are very very lucky. And luck includes not only the course the disease may take but the resources —-emotional, social, and of course financial —-that are essential to let us be our best selves as we try to look after those with a disease that may go on for years.
Still Alice doesn't completely shy away from the difficulties. Alice's husband basically deserts her with the 'she wouldn't want us to be a burden' argument so he can move on to a big job of a at the Mayo clinic. But the wayward daughter comes home to look after mom; in the final scene she reads a piece of literary text to Juliane Moore(still looking pretty damn good). When she asks her mother what's its about, Alice finally manages to get out one word —-'love'.
So that's our lesson for the day. And it strikes home as we , as a society, struggle with questions of 'death with dignity' and assisted suicide. Alice, as her coherent intellectual self , planned a way out—- a video that would direct her Alzheimer's self to a lethal stash of pills she could access when she had come to a certain point—-so that she wouldn't lose herself, so that others would not have to lose the Alice that they knew and loved. In the novel and the film her perfect finale is complicated by the Alzheimer's Alice's inability to understand the directions of her former rational self. She is saved, literally, by the bell at the front door, but the message is clear. Suicide, in whatever form, is not the way out. There is always something worth living for.
And ideally , we would all hope so. We would all like to feel that suffering can have a point. That if we are struck by some calamity and are loved, suffering can be bearable—that suffering itself might have dignity. And the reverse, that the suffering of another can offer us an opportunity—the opportunity to love when it is not easy and there are few of the obvious rewards. Life should not be just pleasant but rich, and that richness can be found in pain as well as pleasure.
I want believe to that is true. But I am not persuaded by what Still Alice presents. I have a good life, I'm fortunate; but I have no faith that I'd be able to endure (whether I am the victim or the caretaker) the horrors of this disease. I don't want a fiction. Or at least I don't want a comforting one. Give it to me straight; if it's a story, I want one that is as tough as it can get. And that, by a a long stretch, isn't Still Alice