“The unhappy sack story is: Michael J. Fox will get this debilitating illness, and it crushes him,” we hear an off-screen voice say to Fox, who then shoots again with a smile: “Yeah, that’s boring.”
Half-Hollywood autobiography, part-love story and part-affecting portrait of dwelling life with Parkinson’s illness, STILL finds the Again To The Future star at his funniest and most sincere. By letting him inform his personal story, warts and all, this movie offers Fox the ability to manage the narrative that has constructed up round him since he first went public with the situation he spent years masking with medicine and reshoots. For the reason that late 90s, Fox’s physique has consistently shaken: he struggles to stroll, he’s riddled with pins and damaged bones from falling over a lot, and life is a continuing battle to manage each his ache and embarrassment. However the 61-year-old’s heroic battle with Parkinson’s isn’t the one story he desires to inform.
First off, there’s his rise to superstardom within the 80s – a fairy story that takes him from being a pint-sized child getting stuffed in a locker by the college bullies to “the boy king of Hollywood”. Director Davis Guggenheim mixes speaking heads and reconstructions with fast-cut footage from Fox’s personal library of movie and TV work, giving STILL the tempo and power of a teen comedy.
After getting forged in Again To The Future whereas he was nonetheless the main mild of TV’s Household Ties, Fox spent a sleepless few months capturing each initiatives on the similar time – and the stress didn’t let up for years. By working at breakneck velocity all through his heyday he grew to become a workaholic, an alcoholic and, by his personal admission, “a little bit of a dick”.
A few of the sweetest moments in STILL come subsequent, with Fox assembly and marrying his Household Ties co-star Tracy Pollan. The couple have now been collectively for 35 years, throughout which Pollan noticed Fox by the hardest time of his life – even when he was doing his greatest to push her away. As sincere about his ups as he’s his downs, it’s a uncommon factor to see a film star being so earnest and grounded on digicam. By means of the movie, Guggenheim helps Fox paint an endearing self-portrait of one among Hollywood’s previous few good guys.
After which there’s the Parkinson’s. Seeing his analysis as karmic retribution for his quick life (“the cosmic value I needed to pay for all my success”), Fox is way too arduous on himself right here. Hinting that he desires to inform his story now as a result of he suspects he received’t be round for for much longer, the unhappiness of the movie runs as deep because it does as a result of Fox looks like such a genuinely first rate individual. By opening as much as present us what life with Parkinson’s appears to be like like (as embarrassing and painful because it typically is humorous and unpredictable), it’s arduous to consider a greater spokesperson for the situation – and tougher nonetheless to consider anybody who deserves it much less.
Particulars
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Tracy Pollan, Gary David Goldberg
Launch date: Might 12
Originally posted 2023-05-10 14:12:04.