Still Alice (2014)

Release date: 2015-02-20
Country: USA|UK|France
Language: English
Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Production Co: Lutzus-Brown, Killer Films, BSM Studio
Genre: Drama
Rating: 7.5/10
Length: 1h 41min

Storyline

Alice Howland is a renowned linguistics professor happily married with three grown children. All that begins to change when she strangely starts to forget words and then more. When her doctor diagnoses her with Early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, Alice and her family's lives face a harrowing challenge as this terminal degenerative neurological ailment slowly progresses to an inevitable conclusion they all dread. Along the way, Alice struggles to not only to fight the inner decay, but to make the most of her remaining time to find the love and peace to make simply living worthwhile.

Plot Keywords

alzheimer's disease, mother daughter relationship, columbia university, new york city, bechdel test passed, suicide contemplation, based on novel, christmas, aspiring actress, dignity, professor, pills, sadness, neurologist, car accident, cooking, teacher, illness, manhattan new york city, character name in title

Short Review

Writer-directors Glatzer and Westmoreland have written a rich, multi-layered screenplay that works equally well as family melodrama and as a meditation on language, identity and mortality.