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Still Alice- a film on a patient suffering with Alzheimer disease.

Vedika Jogani

 Remedial for overall
STILL ALICE


Still Alice is a film based on the book by Lisa Genova titled the same. This movie casts Julianna Moore as Alice Howland. Baldwin plays her husband, John, and Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish  play her children, Lydia, Anna and Tom. The movie focuses around the life of Alice Howland, a professor of linguistics at Columbia University. After her 50th birthday she has been diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease. The movie unveils the complexities and difficulties of the life of a patient with Alzheimer’s.
Shortly after her 50th birthday while giving a lecture at UCLA, Alice finds herself unable to remember certain words. Once back home she gets lost on her jog, in a neighbourhood which is so familiar to her. After realising she is having memory impairment problems she decides to see a neurologist regarding her condition. Once being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Alice’s life slowly starts slowing down. She finds it difficult to teach her classes and ends up losing her job and her place in academia. Alice has a special case of familial Alzheimer’s which essentially means that it is a genetically born disease and a high possibility of her children having it as well. Out of her three children, tom is tested negative, Anna positive and Lydia decides not to be tested at all. As days go by Alice’s memory begins to fade. She daydreams about her sister and mother who died in a car crash when she was a teenager. She memories words and answers a series of questions on her phone every day.  Before her condition gets worse Alice makes a set of videos which she asks herself to look at when she can no longer answer of the questions on her phone. The video instructs her to take the sleeping pills when no one is looking or watching over her. Alice knows her condition has worsened when she can no longer find her way to the bathroom in her own house and when she can’t remember the name of her own daughter after her play. Her doctor encourages her to speak at an Alzheimer’s conference sharing her experiences with those suffering as well. In her speech she talks about the importance of memories in her life, how they have shaped her and how hard it is for her to lose them. She tells the audience she is not suffering but struggling with this memory impairment disease. One day, after video calling her daughter Lydia Alice inadvartently opens the video, following the suicide instructions only to be disturbed by her caregiver. Alice finds herself a loss of what she was doing. As her condition worsens, her husband moves to Minnesota to work at Mayo Clinic. While, Lydia comes from the west coast to take care of her mother. According to me, the portrayals of Alice’s symptoms were correct. She finds herself struggling in going out daily activities. Alice often forgets things that were so once so common to her. Slowly, her brain starts to deteriorate and she loses contact with herself. Alice, a woman of academia finds it hard to cope with her new lifestyle. However, she is not the only one suffering. It is the duty of her family to go on extra mile and take care of her. This movie allows the audience to dwell into the difficulties of an Alzheimer’s patient.
This movie, has won many awards for many reasons. It was only after watching this movie did I realise how hard it is for someone to live with a disease like Alzheimer’s. Through this movie I’ve learnt the importance of hope. It is so hard for Alice, a woman in academia to live in constant fear of memory loss. At the beginning of the movie, the relationship between Lydia and Alice is on a rocky path. Alice is constantly nagging her to go to college in case her life as an actor isn’t fulfilled. However, towards the end it is Lydia who leaves everything behind just to take care of her mother. She leaves her life behind so her mother isn’t alone in her fight against Alzheimer’s.
Still Alice shows the problems of a patient with Alzheimer’s, how they cope with it and the after effects it has on the patient as well as everyone in their life. This movie will leave you with a lesson one can never ‘forget.’

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