STILL ALICE (12)
4 stars
Celebrated linguistics professor Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) leads a charmed life. She has a husband, John (Alec Baldwin), and three grown-up children, Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish) and Lydia (Kristen Stewart), who are forging divergent paths through life.
During a lecture that she has prepared rigorously, Alice inexplicably loses her train of thought. “I knew I shouldn’t have had that champagne,” she jokes to appreciative giggles from her audience. Alice begins to forget simple vocabulary and seeks guidance from family medic Dr Benjamin (Stephen Kunken). He rules out tumours or a stroke, but suspects that Alice is exhibiting the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Tests confirm the doctor’s fears and since the condition can be passed down, Alice calls together her brood. She advises her children to be tested, which poses a dilemma for Anna and her husband, Charlie (Shane McRae), who are expecting twins.
Based on the novel by Lisa Genova, Still Alice is a modern family portrait which will strike an unsettling chord with anyone who has witnessed their nearest and dearest succumb to this cruel disease. Moore delivers a spellbinding, Oscar-winning performance of subtlety and raw power, while Baldwin tugs our heartstrings and Stewart offers strident support as the youngest member of the clan, who is determined to reconnect with her mother in the time that remains.
Writer-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland treat characters with sensitivity, touching lightly on the frustrations and blind terror that will become more frequent for Alice and her inner circle as the disease progresses.
CHAPPIE (15)
3 stars
The year is 2016 and crime rates in Johannesburg are falling thanks to robot police droids called Scouts, manufactured by Tetra Vaal under the aegis of CEO Michelle Bradley (Sigourney Weaver).
Fresh-faced engineer Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) is the genius behind the Scout programme and his celebrity status is a thorn in the side of rival engineer Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), whose crude, heavily armed prototype Moose has been sidelined by the rousing success of the Scouts.
Deon wants to take his programme to the next level and hopes to give birth to a fully conscious artificial intelligence. He conducts experiments in secret, only to be kidnapped during the testing phase by low-level criminals Ninja (Ninja), Yolandi (Yo-Landi) and Yankie (Jose Pablo Cantillo), who stumble upon Deon’s childlike robotic creation, christened Chappie (Sharlto Copley), and decide to corrupt the automaton for a heist.
Chappie is a futuristic thriller, which hardwires the heavy-armoured brutality of RoboCop with the childlike wonder of Short Circuit. It’s an unlikely mechanised hybrid and the script, co-written by Terri Tatchell, suffers abrupt shifts in tone within an episodic narrative that poses, but doesn’t answer, unsettling questions about artificial intelligence and our rush to supplant human imperfection with clinical robot precision.
Copley elegantly conveys the inquisitiveness of the newborn hero and Jackman growls and grimaces as a swarthy villain who exploits Chappie’s unethical creation for personal gain . . . even if that means reducing half of the city to rubble.
Weaver is shamefully underused, but is hopefully just warming up for her return to the Alien franchise with Chappie director Neill Blomkamp at the helm. A three-disc box set comprising District 9, Elysium and Chappie is also available.