Still Alice

Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice, is a neuroscientist. The director, Richard Glatzer, while making this movie was himself battling a neuro degenerative disease, and I guess it's that, with Juliana Moore's powerful and gripping portrayal, that gives us this deep and sensitive movie, one that moved me to the core.

Alice,  is a linguistic professor diagnosed with an early onset of Alzheimer's, at 50, at the peak of her career. She starts to notice little aberrations, like forgetting words in between lectures, losing her way on her daily walk..... and she slowly acknowledges there's a problem. She visits a neurosurgeon..... and then starts the process of diagnosis, her coming to terms with the disorder.....and the ensuing struggle of living with it.

As Alice says at one point, 'I am not suffering the disease, I'm struggling to live it....I'm trying to master the art of losing'. As a linguistics professor, her identity is so defined by her intellect, her love for language and her own articulation, that it makes it that much more dreaded. 

Her family a loving husband (Alec Baldwin) and three grown up children are understanding and supportive but you can see where the strain and patience starts to wear.......starts with her husband saying "whatever happens, I'll be there", but there's the stress from his need to focus on his career.  The movie pretty much stays focused on her perspective, her journey. It's an internal battle with her own identity and need to stay herself.

Lydia, her youngest daughter, (Kristen Stewart) the rebel of the family who has given up college for theater, has a strained relationship with her mother, yet, seems the one to ultimately connect. She asks her mother "how does it feel?"  And when Alice says "I have good days and bad, and in good days I can almost pass for a normal person, and in bad days, I'm searching for myself" ........ Lydia says, 'that's sounds like a horror story', you know that's the deepest level of empathy and understanding she can give her.  I loved the passion that Kristen brings to screen in her very presence.

There's some sequences which just stay with you: like how she's constantly playing scrabble on her phone and she goes from a 66-point score, with a well-placed 'hadj', to a shadow of the player she used to be, laying down 'tone' for a mere 6.

There's this sequence of Alice listening to her past self. Alice in the early stage of her illness is well aware of how it can progress, and she records a video to her future self, guiding suicide, should the situation arise. The earlier Alice, talking with love, patience and certainty as though to a child, and the Alice of now listening with trust and recognition....and effort to follow instructions. It's one of the most poignant and shattering sequences.

It's also interesting to what extent Alice uses technology in most innovative ways to keep her memory going, answering questions on daily basis, doing simple spellings, her children's names ......I also read that Richard Glatzer uses technology as much to battle his motor neurone condition, his own indomitable spirit matching that of the film's protagonist.

While the disease reaches it's inevitable conquer of the body, the movie is yet defiant, insightful and uplifting in spirit.

I chose this picture (photograph above) as it seems to epitomize her issue........

'I miss myself'

as can happen with a brain disorder, and as epitomized in the title...... Is she still Alice? And also to acknowledge the author..... I'm sure it's a book that has helped many understand the trauma and struggle of those inflicted by Alzheimer's.