In a sentenceJulianne Moore needs less help from the music than the music seems to think
Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) begins to experience disorientation. An Alzheimer’s diagnosis threatens the abilities on which her sense of herself depends, and she tries to understand what is happening to her mind. John Howland (Alec Baldwin) is among those responding to the diagnosis, while Alice’s relationship with her daughter, Lydia Howland (Kristen Stewart), comes under new pressure. Their existing difficulties do not disappear because Alice is ill. She wants to keep thinking and communicating as she always has, but the symptoms make that harder for her and force the family to consider what will change.
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Julianne Moore makes Still Alice painfully convincing, even when the filmmaking settles for the familiar. Her scenes with Kristen Stewart give this restrained Alzheimer’s drama enough emotional force to overcome its cautious storytelling.
Still Alice is a moving drama with a conventional script and an unusually attentive central performance. Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland adapt Lisa Genova’s novel with a clear concern for Alice’s experience of Alzheimer’s, keeping her intelligence central to our understanding of what the illness threatens. That matters in a genre which can too easily turn a person into an occasion for everyone else to learn compassion. Here, Alice remains worth listening to when listening becomes difficult.
Julianne Moore makes the first signs of confusion hard to dismiss without making them look like a performance of symptoms. Her face and voice register the work involved in trying to remain composed, and we can sense how much being able to think clearly means to Alice. We were frightened by that early disorientation. The effort to understand what is happening is still there, plainly visible, even as Alice struggles to trust her own mind.
Kristen Stewart helps keep the scenes between mother and daughter from becoming another account of Alice’s symptoms. As Lydia Howland, her exchanges with her mother have the unsettled closeness of people whose relationship did not begin with a diagnosis. Affection does not clear away every difficulty, and the performances allow both women to have feelings that are inconvenient to the other. We would have welcomed more of these exchanges; some of the other characters are too lightly drawn to make the same impression.
Denis Lenoir’s cinematography helps us share Alice’s disorientation, but the visual approach is otherwise rather staid. The images seldom seem as alert to Alice’s changing thoughts as her face does, and the film can look too settled for what she is experiencing. Tommaso Ortino’s production design is similarly discreet, leaving Alice’s surroundings with less character than the people occupying them. Keeping attention on the performances works, but it also makes the film depend on them for almost every moment of interest.
Nicolas Chaudeurge’s editing keeps the progression legible, at some cost to the time we spend with each change. We sometimes need longer to absorb what has happened before the film moves on. Ilan Eshkeri’s score has the opposite problem: it presses the sadness beyond what the acting requires. The added emphasis makes some passages feel more conventional than the performances deserve.
The 101-minute running time should not be mistaken for an easy evening. There is real pleasure in watching acting this attentive, even when the subject is painful. Accept the conventional storytelling, and the exchanges between Alice and Lydia are reason enough to stay. Leave a little quiet afterwards rather than asking the next programme to cheer things up.
Most critics find Still Alice moving and humane, with praise centred on Julianne Moore’s restrained portrayal of Alzheimer’s and its effect on Alice’s sense of herself. The reviews repeatedly credit her face, voice and small shifts in behaviour with making the illness feel immediate rather than merely explained. Kristen Stewart also draws praise, particularly for the intimacy and unease of the mother-daughter relationship, while supporters value the film’s quiet attention to Alice’s experience.
The spread is wide, though even detractors generally admire Moore. Reservations cluster around familiar plotting, thin supporting characters and filmmaking that some find too cautious or visually plain to match the performances. Empire praises the visual techniques used to convey Alice’s worsening condition, whereas Slant Magazine objects to melodramatic storytelling and an intrusive score. The central division is over whether the film’s restraint gives its subject dignity or softens material that needs a less conventional treatment.
The review presents Alzheimer’s as a cruel, tragic progression. Its description emphasizes the devastating inevitability of the disease.
Read the full review →Hughes finds the film stirring, thought-provoking and deeply humane. He especially praises Julianne Moore’s heartfelt performance and the visual techniques used to convey Alice’s worsening condition.
Read the full review →Sexton finds the film deeply moving and life-affirming. He singles out Julianne Moore’s harrowing performance as Alice for praise.
Read the full review →Hans finds the film an absorbing, intimate portrait that avoids becoming manipulative despite its bleak subject. She especially praises Kristen Stewart and Julianne Moore’s onscreen chemistry and the film’s focus on Alice’s intellectual identity.
Read the full review →The review praises the film as a sensitive, controlled portrayal of Alzheimer’s, led by Julianne Moore’s quietly heartbreaking performance. It singles out Moore’s restrained depiction of Alice’s gradual decline as the film’s strength.
Read the full review →Debruge finds the film sensitive, dignified, and devastating, with a powerful perspective on living with Alzheimer’s. He especially praises Julianne Moore’s restrained performance and the filmmakers’ quiet, emotionally focused approach.
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Away from HerA spouse faces dementia and the limits of what love can preserve.
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A SeparationCare for an ailing parent becomes tangled in a family’s competing needs.
The FatherAnother account of dementia, with confusion built into the rooms themselves.
