- STILL ALICE Get ready for a good cry.
Julianne Moore is probably the best cinematic crier in the business. None of her films are truly complete until she scrunches up her face and lets loose with an unself-conscious bawl. She’s a great actress, but there’s something about those tears—is it catharsis?—that audiences seem to find particularly satisfying. The patented Julianne Moore crying scene comes fairly early in Still Alice, when her character, a well-to-do (and mildly pompous) professor of linguistics, is informed she very likely has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. You’ve never seen a Moore breakdown like this one, full of ugly, gagging sobs. It’s frankly a little shocking after all those years of weeping on command to see Moore dig this deep and discover a whole new way to cry. The stakes feel higher; this woman was just told her prize possession—her mind—was being stolen from her, piece by piece, and that there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening. What else is there to do but cry?…