Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, 2023.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim.
Starring Michael J. Fox.
SYNOPSIS:
Follows the life of beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, exploring his personal and professional triumphs and travails, and what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease.
It’s incredibly rare for an actor who has stepped back from public view – relatively speaking – for as long as Michael J. Fox has to maintain such a high level of popularity. It speaks to not only the near-universal love for Back to the Future but of the widespread admiration for the man, and concern for his wellbeing in light of disclosing his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 1998.
But as Fox makes clear early in this documentary from Davis Huggenheim – perhaps not-so-coincidentally the husband of Fox’s Back to the Future co-star Elisabeth Shue – he doesn’t want your pity. Fox elaborates that the popular narrative, of him being a sad case of a vibrant, witty actor debilitated by disease, is “boring,” and hopes to leave viewers with an altogether more hopeful, insightful impression.
Yet there’s no sugar-coating the reality of Fox’s condition here, the beloved actor showing himself in extreme states of vulnerability from the outset, whether brushing his teeth with hand tremors or struggling to walk. But Fox takes it in fair humour; when falling over in the street he jokingly tells a concerned passerby, “You knocked me off my feet.” And while clearly aware that time will only make things more challenging, offers up an irreverent portrait of a man still living life to its fullest.
Fox makes for an intensely generous and engaged interviewee throughout, speaking extensively about his own insecurities as a young Canadian actor, before his father helped him move out to Hollywood and, when down to his final pennies, scored the life-changing gig on hit sitcom Family Ties. This of course snowballed into winning the lead in Back to the Future, following Eric Stoltz’s departure and a brutal agreement to shoot the film and Family Ties concurrently, getting little sleep in the process.
Though it’s worth mentioning that you absolutely shouldn’t expect any sort of extensive deep dive into Back to the Future here; while a decent segment is devoted to the original film, the sequels get barely a passing mention, and it’d be a disservice to the wider particulars of Fox’s life to let his biggest success overshadow everything else.
Fox frankly seems far more illuminated anyway when discussing his wife of 35 years, Tracy Pollan, who he met while playing lovers on Family Ties, and the many glimpses of Fox with his family are sure to warm the hearts of all but the most resistant cynics. But none of this feels like fluffy padding as it might in another documentary; when informed by Fox’s 1991 Parkinson’s diagnosis and the resulting alcoholism which nearly destroyed his marriage, Fox seems enormously satisfied with and grateful for his lot in life.
Again, there’s little trace of vanity in what Fox says or shows us, freely speaking about how he attempted to conceal his Parkinson’s while shooting sitcom Spin City, until the tremors became significant enough that he went public, since which he’s played characters with Parkinson’s in a number of TV shows and movies. And ultimately, Fox’s true public legacy will be his activism, having raised roughly $2 billion in Parkinson’s research funding through his self-named organisation.
Guggenheim’s editorially tight film melds contemporary interviews with Fox with an extensive array of footage from his early career, including the fateful Family Ties audition that won him the job. But the real masterstroke comes through a bevy of reconstructions of Fox’s spoken narration, most impressively dramatising his hellacious schedule being shuttled between the sets of Family Ties and Back to the Future, set to Alan Silvestri’s iconic score of the latter no less. Shot with genuinely slick, cinematic flair, complete with first-rate period production design and amusing splicing-in of clips from Fox’s career, it lends the pic a playful air without getting goofy.
One imagines that somebody, somewhere will call Guggenheim’s film “uncritical,” but can a documentary really be a fawning hagiography if it’s a genuine struggle to find much of a bad word said about its subject? Fox certainly isn’t a saint by his own admission, but ultimately proves to be something better – a tenacious activist, fastidious family man, and inspiring optimist for what the future may hold.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is a charming, moving, concisely crafted docu-profile that’ll be easy catnip for Fox’s fans, all while avoiding frothy sentimentality.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
