Julianne Moore as Alice Howland in Still Alice

Best Actress at the 87th Annual Oscars (2014)

Notable Quote:

“I don't have to be fair. I'm your mother.”

Synopsis:

Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) develops early onset Alzheimer’s, AND she’s married to Alec Baldwin, like, could this woman have a worse life?

The character:

You know that feeling when you misplace your phone, and can’t for the life of you remember where you put it? Yeah, welcome to Alice Howland’s life. Honestly, losing your memories is one of the most horrifying things I can imagine, so this film is an emotionally intense experience. She’s a distinguished college professor, a woman who has, in many ways, built her life on her mental abilities, and when faced with a devastating diagnosis, reacts like anyone might, alternating between despondence and acceptance, between a desire to end it all, and a drive to live in the moment as best she can.

For the most part, this movie is a story of a disease, and how a woman grapples with it, not so much the woman herself. But one fascinating trait of Alice’s is that she’s an overbearing mom: at least to one of her kids, daughter Lydia, an aspiring actress that Alice often badgers into going to college. Most intriguingly, she uses her Alzheimer’s in service of manipulation, reading Lydia’s journal and then trying to pretend that she didn’t know what she was reading, which is SUCH a sneaky thing to do. But then the movie essentially drops that whole thing, which really ends my fun.

The performance:

Yet another entry into the “Oh shit, we didn’t give her an Oscar yet!?” canon, Julianne Moore’s performance isn’t her best work, but unlike, say, Kate Winslet’s Oscar for The Reader, it’s still quite good. Moore’s best quality is a seemingly innate softness, and she uses it to her advantage in this role as a woman who is now incredibly vulnerable. Alice’s personality changes as she loses her memory, and Moore embodies this, seeming to actually become a different person. And of course, all of her emotional outburst are great. But as I said, Alice is mainly her disease, rather than being a full character: I wish that Moore had gotten more (lol) to do in this film.

The movie:

Still Alice feels less like a movie than a PSA about the difficulty of living with Alzheimer’s, without much story beyond that. Add to that the fact that it’s filmed aesthetically like a pharmaceutical commercial, and you have an odd watching experience. But even though I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out and watch this film, it’s still incredibly moving, and I appreciate that it’s never maudlin or overly sentimental.

Was the Oscar deserved?

Yes, Moore’s performance is moving and heartfelt.