“Still Alice” is likely three times the film it would be without its central performance – a tremendous turn by Julianne Moore, who adds texture and detail where the script often glosses over such. The film suffers from what might be described as Lifetime movie-ism: a tendency to simplify its subject matter, which is by definition very deep, and in turn resorting to easier emotional ploys. This kind of material is an emotional mine field, particularly for anyone who can relate to any of it in even a secondary or tertiary fashion.
Concerning the titular Alice (Julianne Moore), a neurologist, wife, and mother of three grown children – a prolific life’s achievement, only in her 50s – who learns that she has developed early-onset Alzheimer’s. The film indicates that this disease is even more rapidly affecting in intelligent victims, whose resourcefulness often delays the symptoms and diagnosis until far into its development.
The use of Alice’s family unit to examine various aspects of her disease – her children’s personalities are almost perpendicularly opposed, and her husband’s professionalism occasionally eclipses, if only temporarily. His love and dedication – proves somewhat schematic, although this is less bothersome than at least one suspense-bating choice that’s so poorly thought-out as to be a distasteful sore thumb (to be vague and hopefully spoiler-free: it involves a video). What drives Alice – first as words begin to elude her, followed by names, places, and other memories – is never made clear: worse, it’s never really questioned, either. Moore strives for this level of specificity, and occasionally finds it (such as in a series of wonderful sequences with her daughter, Lydia, an excellent Kristen Stewart). Still, Alice finds the soft spots in tear-jerking material, but it doesn’t linger.
Just as “commercial” in nature (the quotations should indicate that this is a dubious term in almost any context) is the excellent “Selma,” which is at least as eerily aligned to the times of 2014/2015 as the also-recommended “Fruitvale Station” was a year ago, if not more so. The time is 1965; the place, Alabama. A tremendous David Oyelowo is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the forefront of the civil rights movement, and in the interest of word space, I’ll simply put it that everyone who worked on this film was clearly giving their all, from director Ava DuVarnay down to the tiniest bit parts and technical artists. “Selma” is a passionate, compassionate, artful, democratic, thoughtful, and generous portrayal of a turbulent point in humanity. Contentiousness is painted as any everyday fight. Violence is done so with clear brutality. And while there are many bad people, none of them are outright demonized. The film doesn’t have to: their actions, and history, have already done the job.
Surprisingly, the script was not able to use any of the words of Dr. King’s actual speeches, due to copyrights. While this is stifling from a certain creative perspective, I think it creates opportunities elsewhere and works to the film’s ultimate advantage: “Selma” is as much about this time and place, and the rights and race issues and the fights that were and are still being fought over them, as it is about history as action. It keeps us locked into the idea of history as something we don’t see in the moment, and that films that broadly mock the past from the vantage point of the “enlightened” present are lying, because they disown our own responsibilities going forward. Anyone with working eyes and ears can see we’re still struggling for these freedoms now. “Selma” would have likely made my top 10 of the year had I the opportunity to see it in time. It’s at the rare crossroads where great film art and topicality meet.
“Selma” is now playing in theaters nationwide; “Still Alice” is currently playing in select cities, and will open nationwide on Jan. 16.
Robert Humanick is a contributing writer for slantmagazine.com. Follow Rob on Twitter @rhumanick