Still Alice Disease

Words: 1340
Pages: 6

Alzheimer’s is a very common disease heard about through culture today. Though many people have heard of this tragic disease, many do not fully understand what happens to the person diagnosed with the illness. The film Still Alice walks a person through the stages of the disease through the story of the main character, Alice Howland. The amazingly talented linguist professor is shown losing her way of life because of the effects of Alzheimer’s. During one scene of the film, Alice is preparing Christmas dinner for her family. The audience is able to see Alice with her whole family for the first and final time before her diagnoses. The viewers can experience the Alice her family and aquiantances know before her health decline. Still Alice demonstrates …show more content…
Alice’s daughter Lydia becomes Alice’s caregiver as her disease worsened. Alice loved her family and Alice knew her family loved her, but that was not always depicted in the movie. Alice’s family live very busy careers and social lives, and do not usually put visiting Alice as top priority. Lydia, however, did put her mom first. This is very obvious in how the camera focuses during the Christmas dinner. Anytime Lydia was near; she was the focus of the camera. During these important shots, the audience see the emotions of concern on Lydia’s face. For example, Alice was telling everyone to go into the dining room so she could finish preparing the meal. Lydia had noticed her mom seemed a bit flustered and not at herself so she paused for a second with a very concerned look on her face before exiting into the dining room. The other members of the family were completely oblivious to Alice’s stressed and uneasy looks. This significant part of the scene gives great foreshadowing into the rest of the film. On another occasion during the same scene, Alice reintroduces herself to Tom’s girlfriend, Jenny. Jenny and Lydia both recognize this mistakes, which gives them both a reason for concern. While Jenny kind of played the incident off, Lydia continued to give unsteady looks towards