Alice Was

Hey guys!

Happy Monday!
So, today (after a very productive day doing a million things, I assure you) I joined my mom in watching Still Alice, a movie I’m fairly sure I’m very late in watching being that it was rent-able on Redbox. However, I had heard of this movie before and had watched Julianne Moore accept the prestigious Academy Award for Best Actress back in February.

So, it had to be sorta good, right?

Well, yes. And no.

I mean, to be fair, these types of melodramatic gray-background-melancholy-music-tear-inducing movies (that I’m surprised Bradley Cooper didn’t cop a starring role in) don’t typically draw me in. My mom, on the other hand, loves these types of movies (especially when Bradley Cooper is involved. I mean really, who doesn’t?) But I decided to watch it anyway, for the sake of family bonding and because I was wondering what on earth Adam Maitland (sorry, Alec Baldwin) and Bella Stewart were doing there.

Long story short, Julianne Moore 100% deserved that award. Hands down. Her expressions (or lack thereof) flawlessly depicted the transition from cerebral intellectual working as a Columbia professor to dejected mother and wife struggling to grasp on to the memories Alzheimer’s constantly steals. The subtle differences in her appearance as she continues to deteriorate are artful and realistic, while the raw feelings transmitted in the poised silences and conflicted moments are clearly felt by the viewer.

It is hard to disparage the other members of this star-studded cast, however. Their roles were just as important and just as central to the main character, Dr. Alice Howland’s, internal and external struggles to stay “Still Alice”, despite her growing memory difficulties.

And you know, I think what hit me the most was the way her children reacted when she broke the news to them. For those of you who haven’t seen it by the way, 50-year old Alice finds out that along with having been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, the specific type she has is also familial Alzheimer’s, meaning there is a fifty-fifty chance her three children could have it too. And after some tests, it turns out one of them does. But again, the way the children, or really more Anna (the one who has the disease), reacts is what blew my mind.

Their cold demeanors and lack of instinct to hug their mother immediately after her announcement just surprised me completely. I mean, guys, she has Alzheimer’s. And yet, they all just continued sitting there, in what I will write off to shock. While the mom burst out in apologies and tears for something that was in no way within her ability to control, her children simply stared at her and in fact, as her condition worsens, the oldest continues to distance herself and soon the family talks about Alice as if she’s not there, or as if she were senile.

It’s a really, really tough transition to watch, and even harder as you see the ones who do try, mainly her husband and her youngest daughter Lydia, reach out and connect with her in new ways so as to keep her spirits up and her resolve intact.

Mostly though, the movie touched me in that it made me think, what would I do if this happened to me? Or if this happened to someone I loved? But in a way, it has happened to someone I love. My grandma, who lives in Mexico with a caretaker and whom I call Mane, has a memory that is faltering every day she ages. It’s not technically classified as Alzheimer’s, but it’s close. It’s very very close. It’s the most noticeable when we call and she asks for the fifth time whether we live in Mexico with her, or when she sometimes slips up and forgets who I am. It’s those little things that are just so hard.

I honestly believe Alzheimer’s is one of the cruelest diseases mankind has encountered.

To be ripped of your memories, your loved ones, your dignity, everything you have worked for your entire life in a matter of years…it’s heartbreaking. I mean, you’ve watched The Notebook right? It’s just unimaginable for both the victim and the onwatchers-one feels like everything is at the tip of their tongue and yet out of reach, and the other watches a loved one become more and more frustrated and embarrassed and they know it’s nothing they can save them from.

So yes, I did really like this drama for once. It touched my heart in all the right places and was wonderfully executed. I’m really glad movies like these are being made, mostly so those who are suffering from such a unique illness are understood better and so their cause gains national and international momentum.

Because with this technology-ridden world, there is space to hope, and I really hope, with all of my heart, that there will come a day when these things are no longer things of worry, and that someday we can find a cure.

Until tomorrow friends,

Regina L.