SXSW 2023 Review:
"STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie"
Release Date: May 12, 2023 (AppleTV+)
Rating: R Running Time: 95 minutes In 1990, Michael J. Fox was at the height of his fame. A year earlier, he had completed a 7-season run on Family Ties, the NBC sitcom that made him a household name. His roles in Teen Wolf and the Back to the Future franchise turned him a global sensation. He had already worked with Paul Schrader and Brian De Palma on dramas that, while not box office hits, shows his range as an actor. Despite his success and status, Fox was troubling balancing his career with his 1988 marriage to his Family Ties costar Tracy Pollan. But after waking up with a hangover one morning in a Florida hotel, Fox noticed the pinkie finger on his left hand could not stop trembling. “In the face of all evidence to the contrary, I was in an acid bath of fear and professional insecurity. The trembling was a message from the future,” the actor says at the beginning of STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, an AppleTV+ documentary about his battle with Parkinson’s disease. Directed by Davis Guggenheim with warmth and understanding, STILL chronicles the toll Parkinson's taken on Fox’s life, marriage, and career since his 1991 diagnosis. Guggenheim opens with Fox recalling that fateful day in 1990 when he first noticed something wrong with his body before offering an in-depth account of Fox’s entry into acting as teenager growing in Canada, the struggles he faced for three years as an actor desperate to find work, and the uphill battle he faced landing his breakthrough role as Family Ties’ young conservative Alex P. Keaton. From there, Guggenheim then traces Fox’s rise to fame and fortune, with his account of simultaneously filming Family Ties and Back to the Future told in such frenetic fashion in a deliberate attempt make us feel the exhaustion and confusion Fox endured during that difficult but obviously career-setting moment in his career. STILL is at its most intriguing when Fox reveals how he hid his diagnosis from everyone but his family so he could continue to act in films and the ABC sitcom Spin City. Despite being able to time for medication for peak effectiveness, Fox still had to resort to holding an object in his left hand to hide the trembling he experienced. As Fox makes his disclosure, Guggenheim cuts to scenes of Fox from such early 1990s films as Life With Mikey and For Love or Money and his 1996 sitcom Spin City (which he starred in for four season so he could remain at home with Polan and their children). Fox did a good job of hiding his symptoms in plain sight until he announced he had Parkinson’s in 1998. “I should have seen it coming, the cosmic price I had to pay for all my success,” says Fox, who also battled alcoholism for about a year after his diagnosis. Given his health, Fox appears particularly grateful that Pollan has remained by his side through thick and thin. Pollan provide Fox’ with “clarity,” he says, and she is filmed constantly pushing him or keeping his life on track. Following Fox’s cue, that he does not want to be pitied for his poor health, Guggenheim does not depict Fox as a prisoner of a failing body. Guggenheim steers clear of sentimentality, with the possible exception of when Fox is interacting with his children, and never resorts to presenting Fox in a sentimental manner. Fox is shown walking with great difficulty before taking a nasty fall, and he relates to Guggenheim some of the injuries he has sustained in recent years (a broken hand, a broken arm, and a broken cheekbone). “I’m in pain. I’m in intense pain,” admits Fox, who occasionally stops Guggenheim’s line of questioning to take his medication. Fox has lived with this pain for decades, but it is not stopped him from participating in Parkinson’s fund-raising and awareness campaigns. Or making the occasional appearance in a film or television. “If I’m here 20 years from now, I’ll either be cured or a pickle,” Fox jokes. Finger’s crossed, Fox will still be with us in 20 year. And that he and others currently living with Parkinson’s are cured. Robert Sims Posted: March 24, 2023. Web sites: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2023/films/2081803 https://tv.apple.com/ |
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