Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Still Alice is an American drama film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland and based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 bestselling novel of the same name. The film stars Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, a linguistics professor at Columbia diagnosed with familial Alzheimer’s disease. Alec Baldwin plays her husband, John, and Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, and Hunter Parrish play her children, Lydia, Anna and Tom.
Still Alice had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2014. It received critical acclaim, particularly for Moore, who won awards including the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.
About the Story
Dr. Alice Howland (Julianne Moore), a linguistics professor at Columbia University, celebrates her fiftieth birthday with her physician husband John (Alec Baldwin) and three adult children. During a lecture, Alice forgets the word “lexicon”, and during a jog becomes lost on campus. Her doctor diagnoses her with early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease.
Alice’s eldest daughter, Anna (Kate Bosworth), tests positive for the Alzheimer’s gene; Anna’s unborn twins test negative, as does Alice’s son Tom (Hunter Parrish), a junior doctor. Alice’s youngest daughter, aspiring actress Lydia (Kristen Stewart), decides not to be tested.
Alice memorizes words that she writes on a blackboard and sets herself personal questions on her phone that she answers every morning. She hides sleeping pills in her room and records a video message instructing her future self to commit suicide when she can no longer answer the questions. As her disease advances, she loses her job, unable to give focused lectures. She becomes lost searching for the bathroom in her own home and wets herself, and does not recognize Lydia after seeing her perform in a play.
John is offered a job at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Alice asks him to postpone it, but he feels this is impossible. At her doctor’s suggestion, Alice delivers a speech at an Alzheimer’s conference about her experience with the disease, using a highlighter to remind herself which parts of the speech she has already spoken, and receives a standing ovation.
Still Alice
Directed by: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish, Victoria Cartagena, Erin Darke, Eha Urbsalu, Cat Lynch, Kristin Macomber
Screenplay by: Richard Glatzer
Production Design by: Tommaso Ortino
Cinematography by: Denis Lenoir
Film Editing by: Nicolas Chaudeurge
Costume Design by: Stacey Battat
Set Decoration by: Susan Perlman
Music by: Ilan Eshkeri
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material, and brief language including a sexual reference.
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: January 16, 2015
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