get the tissues
The Michael J. Fox Documentary 'Still' Is One Of The Most-Liked Movies Of The Year. Here's What The Reviews Say
Apple TV now has the new much-buzzed about documentary "Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie." available to stream. The film takes a look at the life and career of the famous actor and his struggles with Parkinson's disease. Through a mix of interviews, reenactments, archival footage, clips of his work and edits of his life in the public eye, "Still" has raked in over 100 good-to-great reviews, which makes this one of the best-reviewed movies of the year so far.
Here's what critics have to say about "Still."
What it's about
The beloved actor Michael J. Fox shines with empathy and honesty in "Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie." Fox has a positive vibe that the world appreciates, and his struggle with Parkinson's disease has not dampened that positivity, a fact that's evident in director Davis Guggenheim's new documentary. Fox tells the story of his family, his successes, and his life since the diagnosis. His is one of the most detailed and enthralling stories I have seen this year in a documentary.
In Davis Guggenheim's ambitious, sometimes overly stylized but undeniably moving documentary, we retrace Fox's childhood in Canada as the smallest kid (by FAR) in the class, his rise to TV and movie stardom with "Family Ties" and "Back to the Future" in the 1980s, his career ups and downs, his battle with alcoholism — and his long, painful, debilitating battle with Parkinson's. The documentary is at its best when we observe Fox in quiet, warm and funny moments with his wife and their four children, and when it's just Fox facing the camera, talking with his typical candor and humor about his condition and refusing to be painted as some kind of martyr.
Fox is a national treasure (for Canadians)
As anyone familiar with his written memoirs will know, Fox's self-deprecation extends to connecting the "diminished blinking and reduced spontaneity of facial expression" of Parkinson's with the appearance of "a growing comfort in front of the camera — less mugging and hamming it up". It's a "tough son of bitch" indeed who can conclude they weren't getting "better", just "sicker", and speak with such [candor] about the acting tics and drug regimes they employed to hide their symptoms. While frenetic illustrative clips show the energetic young Fox running and jumping his way through Back to the Future and Casualties of War, Guggenheim here mines lesser-known films such as 1993's The Concierge (AKA For Love or Money) and the TV hit Spin City to illustrate how Fox kept his hands occupied to stave off tremors on camera.
The best parts of "Still" strip away the artifice and let Fox speak for himself. We see him candidly joking about his bouts with Parkinson's while openly struggling with the disease. We see him working with physical therapists, fighting to gain control of his body, and literally picking himself up after falling to the ground on a New York City sidewalk.
This is a well done documentary
Here, director Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") provides an equally intimate but more cinematic effect by combining Fox's direct-to-camera interviews and narration culled from his book with understated reenactments and clips that cleverly capture key moments. When Fox discusses his insane schedule as he shuttled between his hit sitcom "Family Ties" and shooting "Back to the Future," for example, there's a clip of someone asking his character, "Do you think you can handle both jobs?"
This could have been mawkish — an "eat your vegetables" movie about an inspirational figure overcoming adversity. But keeping Fox's self-effacing, no-nonsense voice as a through-line consistently buoys "Still." So does a lively soundtrack that ranges from INXS to the Beastie Boys to Kenny Loggins. (The use of "This Is It" as Fox and his dad drive to Los Angeles with dreams of stardom is a bit on the nose, however.) There are life lessons here to be learned and shared, for sure. But the film moves with such thrilling pacing it feels more like a celebration.
TL;DR
How we handle the cards we're dealt is everything, and Davis Guggenheim's remarkable documentary "Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie" reminds us that a person stricken with a disease doesn't become that disease.
With apologies to Dr. Emmett Brown, you don’t need a flux capacitor to build a time machine. All you need to do is make a film.
By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, this is a fascinating and funny twin portrait of a Hollywood rise-and-fall, and the realities of living with Parkinson's.
Watch the trailer:
