Julianne Moore plays as a linguistics professor who struggles to hold onto her personality after a diagnosis of early Alzheimer in the unforgettable drama “Still Alice.’’
Julianne is having a big day after being named the National Board of Review’s Best Actress for her work in the movie, cementing her status as the Oscar front-runner this year.
The Oscar front-runner — who’s demonstrated her virtuosity for years in films as varied as “Boogie Nights’’ and “Far From Heaven” — gets to the very soul of the brainy Alice, who receives the rare and shocking diagnosis at age 50 after she forgets the word “lexicon’’ during a speech.
This drops like a bomb on her workaholic husband played Alec Baldwin, who, like Alice, is on the faculty at Columbia University. Her three adult children (Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish) learn they each have a 50 percent chance of inheriting the condition — and could in turn pass it on to their children.
But this superb adaptation of Lisa Genova’s novel mostly focuses on Alice’s fight against mental deterioration, which she meticulously charts in various ways, including Words With Friends.
“Still Alice” may be set in the relatively privileged world of upper-tier academia, but it presents a disease that can devastate any family, anywhere, with unsparing truth and great compassion.
