Name : Vivian Ariella

Class : 12 MIPA 2/ 34
A Review on Still Alice
Still Alice is a 2014 American independent drama movie that is based on Lisa Genova’s novel. The movie
is directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. This movie is a journey about a woman who
suffers Alzheimer's disease. The movie casts Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, Alec Baldwin as John, Kristen
Stewart, Kate Bosworth, and Hunter Parrish as Alice and John’s daughters and son. This movie’s duration is 101
minutes. This movie was made in New York in March 2014. Still Alice had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto
International Film Festival on 2014 September 8. This movie is very famous at that moment. The movie’s pro-
duction have earned $43.9 million at the international box office. The movie was named among the year's top ten
independent films by the National Board of Review.
Alice Howland, is a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and is a world-renowned linguistics
expert. Before she had her Alzheimer’s disease, she is famous for her intelligence. She is married to an successful
husband. They raised their children in the midst of their busy lives. The disease takes controls, and it changes
Alice’s life. Included the relationship with her family and the world. This movie start with Alice’s birthday
celebration with her family. Everything is fine until Alice lecturing as an invited professor. Suddenly, Alice forgot
what she wanted to talk about. At first, she didn’t take it seriously. Alice thought it because she drank too much
champagne at her birthday celebration last night. But things went wrong. When she was jogging around the
campus area she felt confused with the surrounding environment. Then Alice goes to the doctor to did a check
up about her health. The doctor do some test to Alice. And the doctor tells that Alice may have the symptoms of
Alzheimer disease. Alice afraid the Alzheimer’s disease that she sufferes is getting worse. by Alice getting worse,
she start to forgot everything. Alice opened her laptop and there was a video that comanded her to kill herself, if
she already forget everything. At the end of the story Alice and Lydia were sitting in the living room, Lydia read
Alice a book and then Lydia asked Alice about the contents of the book. And all that Alice could say is “love”
The plot of this movie is not very clear based on my opinion. Mixed plot between the reverse plot and the
forward plot make us think harder to understand the meaning of this movie. When using the reverse plot, the
movie tells the story of Alice’s unclear memories about her mother and her sister. It’s a memories of Alice’s past
with her mother and sister running around and playing at the beach. The movie is made in according to the genre
that used in this movie. The movie players also deeply explore the characters they play, especially Alice. The
way the actresses and the actors deepen their role made everyone who watched this movie moved and rises the
awareness about the disease. There’s no plot twist in this movie so it’s quite easy to digest the story. The sudden
move from the forward plot to reversed plot is caused by the changes of Alice’s mindset caused by her early on-
set Alzheimer. When she slowly losing her memories, there’s also memories that come. Like her memory with
her mother and her sister before get in a car accident every time she sees her reflection everywhere.
Still Alice movie is little bit confusing. The movie version cannot really tell the conclusion of the story.
That seems end up like a to be continued movie but there is only one version of Still Alice movie. The part when
Alice is already had a hard time to think and even to talk is the hard part to think about of the movie. Because she
doesn’t even understand what stories that her daughter tells and just smiling and nod. In the end, all she could
say about her daughter’s story is “love”. that told in the end of the movie. And the movie just ended just like that.
The story is quite good yet with a bad ending that make a quite bad impression of this movie. The movie’s story
is a unique one story because it tells us about the early on-set Alzheimer. So we can increase our knowledge and
awareness about this disease.
This movie really inspired every one who watch Still Alice to keep fighting despite having a serious
illness. This movie can be watched by teenagers to adults. We can learn from this movie that in life, there is no a
perfect life. We should keep fighting and living the best of our life. We need to hang on when the world is trying
to drag us down. And also we need to enjoy our life as long as we can by be grateful for our life. This movie also
tells us to be grateful with our health. And also if one of our family members is suffering with a hard disease, we
mustn’t let them down. We need to motivate him or her and stay by their side so they wouldn’t felt lonely. Also
by doing that the diseases won’t get worse. Apart from Alice, we need to have a fit self in physic or mentally. we
can learn everything in this movie based from Alice or her family.