Why 'Still Alice' is about you

Much has been written about her characterization of a woman struggling with the disease. But there's another reason the performance hits home for millions of Americans, whether they are grappling with Alzheimer's or not. The late Richard Glatzer, who co-directed the film with Wash Westmoreland, named it: "Still Alice," he said, is actually a film about "the real unsung heroes: caregivers."

As the audience journeys with Alice and her family from diagnosis to acceptance and adaptation, we watch her husband and three children struggle to make sense of the changes in Alice. They each adjust in their own way, testing and transforming elements of their relationships. And we see what happens when care becomes -- or doesn't become -- a central feature of these relationships.

The changes in these relationships -- between husband and wife, and mother and child -- yield some of the most provocative, brutal and poignant moments of the film. The caregiving relationship is never simple, but the "presence of being" it requires always offers an opportunity for raw honesty and transformation -- both for the individuals involved and the relationship itself. And, in the film, family members grow to become a crucial, if imperfect, circle of care.

This story is familiar to more and more Americans, young and old. Like so many families, Alice's did not have a plan to address such an unexpected diagnosis and must scramble to create makeshift solutions while navigating their own in-the-moment reactions.