Julianne Moore & Still Alice
To celebrate Julianne Moore turning 57 today, I watched her 2014 Oscar winning performance in Still Alice. The film is about a professor who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and earned Moore a Best Leading Actress Oscar after being nominated 4 other times since 1997 (including 2 in the same year!). Moore was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, got her first acting credit for I’ll Take Manhattan (1987 tv mini-series), and is perhaps most known for her roles in a string of notable late 1990s films Boogie Nights (Oscar nominated), The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and The Big Lebowski. Moore has no trouble balancing making serious dramatic films with science fiction or thrillers (like Hannibal opposite Anthony Hopkins in 2001). She gives each of her roles powerful motivations that shapes her performance, often invoking tears in her viewers. Currently seen in theatres in both Kingsman: The Golden Circle and Suburbicon, Moore can make a film more complete (and respected) by being in it. She will next be seen in Bel Canto (thriller about a hostage situation involving an opera singer), Gloria (romance about a 50 something woman seeking out love in dance clubs), and My Life on the Road (drama about Gloria Steinem who actually was a spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s).
Selected Filmography
Kingsman: The Golden Circle, 2017 action with Taron Egerton
Suburbicon, 2017 crime with Matt Damon
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1&2, 2014&2015 adventure with Jennifer Lawrence
*Still Alice, 2014 drama with Alec Baldwin
Crazy, Stupid, Love., 2011 rom-com with Steve Carell
Children of Men, 2006 thriller with Clive Owen
*Far from Heaven, 2002 drama with Dennis Quaid
*The Hours, 2002 drama with Meryl Streep
Magnolia, 1999 drama with Tom Cruise
*The End of the Affair, 1999 romance with Ralph Fiennes
*Oscar nominated
Still Alice
2014, 14A, 1h 41m
Distributor – Sony Classics
Budget / Worldwide Box Office (in millions) – $5 / $43
Filming Location(s) – New York, USA
IMDB – 7.5
Still Alice is a drama about professor Alice Howland (Moore) who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and struggles against the disease with the support of her family. The film is based on the book of the same name by Lisa Genova from 2007 and Moore consulted with the National Alzheimers Association throughout the production. Some of the most touching moments are when Moore shares the screen with her husband and children, two of which are played by Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart. The film (and especially Moore) shined with the progression of the disease and how it examined the toll it took on both the professor and those around her. The beauty of Moore’s performance (something she does often) is how she can get the audience to relate to and begin to understand what her character is going through, and her talent as an actress is how easy she makes it look. There are moments when I found myself wanting to look away because it was too painful, her delivery was heartbreaking, and her family’s performances helped sell the predicament, (Baldwin and Stewart both come across as real people). The film has a brisk pace, almost playing like a highlight reel, but it should be seen to inspire discussion of the disease and for a glimpse into what people living with it go through. Co-writer and co-director Richard Glatzer suffered from ALS, passing away in 2015, and had used a text to speech app to communicate with others when working on the film. He often worked with his husband Wash Westmoreland, including on Still Alice, The Last of Robin Hood (2013 drama about actor Errol Flynn starring Kevin Kline) and Quinceañera (2006 drama about a pregnant 15 year old starring Emily Rios). Julianne Moore was previously in Non-Stop (2014 action thriller set on an airplane starring Liam Neeson), Maps to the Stars (2014 dramedy about a Hollywood family with Mia Wasikowska), and was next in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Seventh Son (2014 adventure as an evil witch). The film also stars Alec Baldwin (Blue Jasmine, 2013 drama), Kristen Stewart (Clouds of Sils Maria, 2014 drama), and Kate Bosworth (Homefront, 2013 action). The DVD includes a video discussing the disease and the film.
Links
Julianne Moore
Still Alice