Julianne Moore's performance is the prime reason for watching this movie. As a film about Alzheimer's Disease, it is a lot less interesting and involving than Sarah Polley's AWAY FROM HER (2006), which featured Julie Christie depicting the onslaught of the condition, and like Ms Moore gaining an Oscar nomination for her work.
STILL ALICE, though well-meaning, is a lot more ponderous than Polley's movie. All the characters, including Moore's, are written so schematically that it's difficult to feel they really exist. Moore, superb actress that she is, rises above the writing. Of the supporting cast, only Stephen Kunken, as Alice's doctor, is able to match her. Alec Baldwin does his very best, but he doesn't manage to overcome the functionality of his brilliant-but-sensitive husband character. The others similarly flail around, but at least they try. What Kirsten Stewart is doing is impossible to understand. Her character is meant to be a struggling young actress. We finally see her on stage in a usually infallibly moving speech from Chekhov, which she recites as flatly as she does everything else in the movie. Impossible to take seriously, rendering a key relationship in the story lifeless.
The photography has some interesting moments depicting Alice's disorientation, but this is offset by some deadly montages of leaves on trees to represent time passing. The music is sentimental. The feeling is of the directors not having enough faith in their material.
None of this, not even Ms Stewart, submerges the amazing Ms Moore, who is never anything less than compelling.
STILL ALICE, though well-meaning, is a lot more ponderous than Polley's movie. All the characters, including Moore's, are written so schematically that it's difficult to feel they really exist. Moore, superb actress that she is, rises above the writing. Of the supporting cast, only Stephen Kunken, as Alice's doctor, is able to match her. Alec Baldwin does his very best, but he doesn't manage to overcome the functionality of his brilliant-but-sensitive husband character. The others similarly flail around, but at least they try. What Kirsten Stewart is doing is impossible to understand. Her character is meant to be a struggling young actress. We finally see her on stage in a usually infallibly moving speech from Chekhov, which she recites as flatly as she does everything else in the movie. Impossible to take seriously, rendering a key relationship in the story lifeless.
The photography has some interesting moments depicting Alice's disorientation, but this is offset by some deadly montages of leaves on trees to represent time passing. The music is sentimental. The feeling is of the directors not having enough faith in their material.
None of this, not even Ms Stewart, submerges the amazing Ms Moore, who is never anything less than compelling.