A Critique to Still Alice
Hello everybody and once again, let's dig in and review another movie. This week we have a social-awareness and melodramatic- ish kind of film. The film is none other than 'Still Alice' which was produced 4 years ago, starring Julianne Moore. Let's get started.
First, let's explore why I said that it was social-awareness video. When we see a poster of a elderly person exhibiting Alzheimer's Disease, it is less impact-ful than a featured film internalizing the emotions and the circumstances that a family going through. It gets you to wonder about the amount of loss that is experienced inside a patient of Alzheimer's such as Alice and have everything you work hard for stripped away from you. Alice was a top-notch linguistics professor and she is now resorted to being encapsulated in her own home and being doubted with every single action that she takes. Not only that, but the family go through a huge loss too. Imagine the person that was once your pillar of support, now is now longer. I am talking about Alice's Husband, John. John used to have the life. He would do the work he loves, and come home to someone he loves too. But now, John is no longer in the receiving end and must do whatever he takes to pay the bills and take care of Alice. Furthermore, the film also shown vivid examples of the progressive stages of Alzheimer's disease. It started with some words in the guest lecture and couldn't remember the address that the neurologist gave and it started becoming more and more serious. The film gave the audience a reflection to the audience's love ones if they have anyone going through these symptoms. In my case, my grandma have already signs of mental decline but that could be due to her age at 80 years old.
The second part is the effectiveness of this movie at tugging at the audience's heart strings. Alice was the protagonist and all eyes was on her. If Mr. Goh were to ask who were internalize the most, it would be ever so obvious. Well, Julianne Moore obviously played here part well, especially those delusional stages of her grief. But there was something more deeper that the screenwriter's beautifully included and that was the five stages of grief by Kubler Ross and David Kessler. The first stage in their theory is denial and it was shown when she rejected that she has memory loss and it was a sign of her getting older. She also didn't want to tell her family about it until it was confirmed. The next stage is bargaining and she bargained with the Neurologist on whether it could because of alternative diseases and bargained with the Dean whether she can extend her career as a lecturer. The third stage is anger and she expressed it well with her family where she would guilt-trip her husband John whenever he has to leave for work. The next stages is depression and acceptance and this was portrayed right before she attempted suicide. She accepted that she cannot do anything about it and she was depressed because everything is stripped from her. But she accepted the outcome and her final resolution was to 'take the pills and sleep'.
The movie is an amazing exposure of psychological diseases as well as using psychological theories such as the five stages of grief to enhance the character of Alice. This is a film that beautifully pulled into our emotions and also make us aware that psychology does Matter. This film is a proof of that. That's all from me and I am signing off until next week!
First, let's explore why I said that it was social-awareness video. When we see a poster of a elderly person exhibiting Alzheimer's Disease, it is less impact-ful than a featured film internalizing the emotions and the circumstances that a family going through. It gets you to wonder about the amount of loss that is experienced inside a patient of Alzheimer's such as Alice and have everything you work hard for stripped away from you. Alice was a top-notch linguistics professor and she is now resorted to being encapsulated in her own home and being doubted with every single action that she takes. Not only that, but the family go through a huge loss too. Imagine the person that was once your pillar of support, now is now longer. I am talking about Alice's Husband, John. John used to have the life. He would do the work he loves, and come home to someone he loves too. But now, John is no longer in the receiving end and must do whatever he takes to pay the bills and take care of Alice. Furthermore, the film also shown vivid examples of the progressive stages of Alzheimer's disease. It started with some words in the guest lecture and couldn't remember the address that the neurologist gave and it started becoming more and more serious. The film gave the audience a reflection to the audience's love ones if they have anyone going through these symptoms. In my case, my grandma have already signs of mental decline but that could be due to her age at 80 years old.
The second part is the effectiveness of this movie at tugging at the audience's heart strings. Alice was the protagonist and all eyes was on her. If Mr. Goh were to ask who were internalize the most, it would be ever so obvious. Well, Julianne Moore obviously played here part well, especially those delusional stages of her grief. But there was something more deeper that the screenwriter's beautifully included and that was the five stages of grief by Kubler Ross and David Kessler. The first stage in their theory is denial and it was shown when she rejected that she has memory loss and it was a sign of her getting older. She also didn't want to tell her family about it until it was confirmed. The next stage is bargaining and she bargained with the Neurologist on whether it could because of alternative diseases and bargained with the Dean whether she can extend her career as a lecturer. The third stage is anger and she expressed it well with her family where she would guilt-trip her husband John whenever he has to leave for work. The next stages is depression and acceptance and this was portrayed right before she attempted suicide. She accepted that she cannot do anything about it and she was depressed because everything is stripped from her. But she accepted the outcome and her final resolution was to 'take the pills and sleep'.
The movie is an amazing exposure of psychological diseases as well as using psychological theories such as the five stages of grief to enhance the character of Alice. This is a film that beautifully pulled into our emotions and also make us aware that psychology does Matter. This film is a proof of that. That's all from me and I am signing off until next week!
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