Still Alice

Still Alive, a film directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, starring Julianne Moore as an intelligent linguistic professor named Alice Howland, Alec Baldwin as her husband, John Howland, Kristen Stewart, Hunter Parrish and Kate Bosworth plays the children of Alice Howland. The movie shows the story of an intelligent university professor that was diagnosed with Familial Alzheimer's disease and how her life changed as her disease progressively getting serious.

This movie pulls my heart strings as it triggers some memories of my late grandfather, whom at his later stage of his life, he started going through Alzheimer's disease turning from a cheerful strong man to a frail forgetful old man that could not recognize us  at times. It is very difficult when a loved-one turn from someone you know to a shell of their former glory. It definitely feels like losing that family member forever.

What I can observed from the movie, the family dealing with the Alice Howland's disease, went through the stage of grief and loss from Kubler-Ross Model. The 5 stages of loss and grief from the Kubler-Ross Model, the first stage of the Kubler-Ross model is Denial, where an individual tries to deny that the reality of the situation and are convinced that it's all a mistake or just a phase. This is evidently shown in the movie, when Alice Howland and her husband in the early stages before the proper diagnosis were made, they think that it is a mistake.

The next stage is anger, Alice Howland was obviously extremely angry at herself and the situation, hence ,she had a number of fights with her husband as well as her kids. this is the stage where an individual at angry and the situation they are in.

The following stage is bargaining, where people tries to make the situation work or better. Alice Howland bargain mostly with herself and her family, she can get certain treatment and do certain mental exercise to slow down the disease, and also she bargain with her family that she can take care of herself without the help of others, even with the disease.

Depression stage is next and this stage is where the reality sinks in and people will feel helpless in the situation. Alice Howland felt extremely helpless in the situation being a well-achieved professor and an intelligent woman slowly losing her intelligence and memories. She cried out numerous times and even thought of suicide when she felt that she was at the mercy of the disease.

The final stage is acceptance, the calm after the storm. People usually will accept the situation and move on after going through all the stages and hopefully be better or do better. In this case, it's actually the family of Alice Howland that accpet her conditions and go on with their lives while taking care of her.

Nevertheless, I love this movie and would recommend everyone to watch this.