Review: Well-Meaning, Respectful, But Bland 'Still Alice' Starring Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart And More

There are serious maladies that will leave you weak, physically diminished and at your worst, a shell of your former self, but there are few diseases as cruel as Alzheimer's. An unstoppable attack on memory, it gradually strips away the accomplishments, life events, family members, loved ones and more from the mind until nothing is left. It removes a lifetime of knowledge and independence. It's heartbreaking and vicious, reducing sufferers into ghosts of who they were, both to themselves and to their family. And so, it's potent stuff for a family drama, and while "Still Alice" is respectful about the subject matter it tackles, it's to such a degree that the earnest film never lands with greater impact than a well-meaning informational pamphlet.

Julianne Moore plays the titular character, who is hardly the face of what many would associate with an "Alzheimer's sufferer." A professor at Columbia, respected academic, devoted wife and loving mother to three children,...