Butterfly Still Alice

Production and year: USA, 2014 Original title: Still Alice Genre: Drama Cast: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish Medical topic: Familial Alzheimer's disease Description: The film "Still Alice" is an adaptation of the 2007 novel "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova (a review of which can also be found on the Przypadki Medyczne.pl website). The film’s title character, fifty-year-old Alice, is an attractive woman who is successful both in her academic career and in her personal life. She is a respected specialist in linguistics, a university professor, and at the same time a happy wife and mother of three adult, ambitious children. This happiness is disrupted by disturbing symptoms that begin to appear in Alice—at first, she forgets individual words during her lectures, gets lost in the familiar surroundings of the university campus while jogging, and increasingly confuses names, even those of people close to her... Filled with anxiety, she consults a neurologist; the alarmingly suspicious low scores on the Mini Mental State Examination are unequivocally confirmed by genetic testing. The detected mutation not only burdens the Howland family’s genome but transforms their entire lives... Moving in its ordinariness and sincerity, the film depicts Alice’s daily struggle with a disease that slowly robs her of everything that was most important to her in life—her independence, intellect, and ability to express herself. The woman must give up her job and face the realities of daily life, while her family must care for a wife and mother who was once eloquent and independent. The incredibly compelling performance by the lead actress (who, not without reason, won an Oscar), which often delights and moves the audience, shows what a burden progressive dementia can be—both for the patient and those around them—but also the determination a patient can show during the illness and what a tremendous support a loving, warm family can be.