STILL (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Still, Apple Original Films

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | May 11, 2023

Michael J. Fox doesn't want pity. He makes that clear at the start of Still, director Davis Guggenheim's intimate and formally clever portrait of the actor, who was once a big movie and television star but whose career eventually slowed after publicly disclosing he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The film is mostly about how Fox spent most of his life trying to figure out who he was, taking up acting as a way to be anyone he wanted, and, after being diagnosed, hide the degenerative condition from everyone except his family. He was very good at pretending.

That part of Fox's life is detailed quite well here, both by way of a series of cinematic tricks and by the man himself, who sits down for lengthy interviews with the filmmaker and readings from his own book. In between the narrative of his personal life and career, we watch Fox go through regular physical therapy sessions, visit the doctor and speak of surgeries for a string of injuries that occur while the film is being made, and spend time with his family. If not for the obvious signs of the disease, which he tries to keep in check with doses of medication while sitting down for the interviews and the readings, everything about Fox's life would seem to be perfectly ordinary.

Guggenheim calls out his subject at one point, saying that at no point in their conversations has the man once said he is in pain. Fox's answer, arriving after a either a moment's consideration or allowing for perfect comic timing, is that the subject simply hasn't come up while they've speaking. "I'm not going to lead with that," he adds, before admitting that, yes, he is pain whenever a tremor occurs and certainly from hitting his face against a bedpost, dislocating his shoulder, and breaking his hand and arm. There's nothing ordinary about this state, but over the course of three decades living with Parkinson's, it has become the norm for Fox. What else can he say?

It does feel as if there's a key piece missing to Guggenheim's documentary, which does such a fine job chronicling the non-stop life Fox had from childhood, through his early days as a struggling actor in Los Angeles, to his sudden rise to fame, and while he spent nearly a decade trying to keep his diagnosis a secret. He did that the way he had since deciding to become an actor: by working. With the availability of prescription medication to keep the symptoms at bay and the freedom of a being a movie star, he started some new routines, too—mainly figuring out, to the minute, when he needed to take a pill so that the tremors wouldn't be so obvious on set and self-medicating by way of as much alcohol as he could ingest.

Fox is so bluntly honest about his struggles as a young actor, as a movie star faced with all sorts of temptations and personality-altering ego-boosts, and as someone who simply couldn't accept what his brain and body were becoming as the disease progressed. He doesn't ask and clearly doesn't want us to feel sorry for him, and while Fox might not always be able to smile or make his mouth speak the one-liner he has in mind at the time, he still has plenty of moments of the sly attitude and self-deprecating humor that made him such a charming presence on screen and in interviews. While walking down the sidewalk outside his apartment, Fox briefly stops to acknowledge someone greeting him, and he falls. "You knocked me off my feet," he tells the woman, and they both chuckle at the good line, despite and maybe because of how uncomfortable the situation really is.

Like Fox, who refuses any help while walking at a much quicker pace than his physical therapist thinks is wise, the film rarely stops, too. It's a rush of family photos, archival footage from media interviews and public appearances, clips from the many episodes of "Family Ties" and the assorted movies Fox performed in, and dramatizations tying all of that footage together into a cohesive narrative of a life and career that were propelled by the various needs of your typical actor. Guggenheim and editor Michael Harte assemble this footage with such momentum that it's impossible not to become caught up in the rush of it, especially when Fox explains how we went about shooting the sitcom that made him famous and Back to the Future, the film that would make him an even bigger star, in a nearly sleepless haze.

What's missing, perhaps, are the quieter moments and some more accurate depiction of the reality of Fox's current situation. Such elements feel a bit too filtered here, either by the subject or the director. It's Fox's story to tell, of course, so if he doesn't want to focus on certain things, that's his prerogative. It's Guggenheim's responsibility, though, to push when necessary (such as with that question about pain) and to fill in the blanks to the best of his ability.

One of the unfortunate oversights here, for example, is how the narrative bypasses so much of Fox's advocacy for Parkinson's research with only some clips of him in front of Congress and speaking on behalf of his non-profit organization. By giving so much attention to Fox's health struggles outside the biographical story, the film might unintentionally fall into exactly the kind of portrayal the subject wants to avoid.

Even so, Still is an admirable look at the life of a man who won so much adoration over the course of his career and has become much more since revealing his health challenges. It's a respectful film about a man wholly worthy of that respect.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products