Julianne Moore in Still Alice. / Sony Pictures
IF YOU ARE BRAVE ENOUGH to face a possibly bleak future, you might be able to sit through “Still Alice” without becoming deeply disturbed or downright depressed. Concerned with the ravages of Alzheimer’s, in this case the early-onset variety, it offers little besides watching actress Julianne Moore win her well-deserved Oscar for this year’s Best Actress.
A sappy musical soundtrack and intermittent flashes of gauzy old home movies accompany Julianne’s seemingly quick slide from a beautiful, articulate and brilliant Harvard University professor into a non-functioning, pants-wetting amoeba who can barely form words. Her husband, played by Alec Baldwin in a virtually non-speaking role, is around but just barely. He seems quite unconcerned with her illness and is instead focused on his own career, spending much of his time answering emails in his computer. Young actress Kristen Stewart of vampire fame plays one of the children and turns in the film’s only other worthy performance.
Unless you are Julianne’s mommy, or maybe Kristen’s, there is little to recommend this movie other than personal reasons. I chose to see it because my own mother had this very disease and died at age 62. According to the film, there is a 50 percent chance of it being passed on to the children of those who have it. Thankfully I am already way too old to have early-onset anything.
–Andrea Rouda
Frequent MyLittleBIrd contributor Andrea Rouda blogs at “Call Me Madcap.”*In an e-mail, writer Andrea Rouda notified MLB that the name of her blog has been changed to Daily Droid.