Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

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  May 9, 2012

  hobster1

  Robert Getchell's script was nominated for an Oscar and it's ingenious in the way it fashions everyday difficulties into an intimately engaging saga. Coming at the end of 1974, the film touches on themes popularized by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique published a decade befo... read morere but still very much a part of the ongoing women's movement at the time. At first Martin Scorsese might seem like an odd choice to direct this ode to female independence. Scorsese wrings real drama from the simplicity of this woman's drive to succeed against increasingly insurmountable odds. But this is not some weepy women's picture. Scorsese brings grittiness to a narrative that could have slipped into treacle. His direction is self assured. What could have been heavy-handed is rendered as a genuine portrait of a person in crisis. There is an utter commonality to the proceedings. It speaks to both men and women. There isn't a false note in the entire 112 minutes. What truly makes the drama powerful is the magnitude of Ellen Burstyn's Academy Award winning performance. Alice Hyatt is a testament to the human spirit. It's clear why Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore remains one of the enduring classics of 70s cinema. It just gets better with age.

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  March 31, 2012

  spielberg00

  Before I saw ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, I had seen four films directed by Martin Scorsese: SHINE A LIGHT, his 2008 documentary of a Rolling Stones concert; THE DEPARTED, one of his many crime flicks; THE AVIATOR, his biographical picture about multi-millionaire Howard Hughe... read mores; and HUGO, his charming family fantasy movie from just last year. Only one of them I had given less than a solid A (HUGO), so I was excited to see ALICE, the film many consider his best. It's not his usual, dark, ultra-violent type of movie (and I'd guess it's his only PG rated film until HUGO), but it's a classic with no hesitation, and the best I've seen of him thus far.
  
  ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE is just about as unusual as its own title. It's a fantastic film, and it's (in a way) a family drama, but there's something extra added on to make it more likeable. We've had so many movies about family problems, too many for me to name. They're all either pass or fail, with nothing in the middle. A "fail" would be Jim Carrey's LIAR LIAR. A "pass" would be Robert Redford's ORDINARY PEOPLE. For me, this passes just as much as ORDINARY PEOPLE, if not a tad more.
  
  http://themoviefreakblog.WordPress.com/2012/03/31/review-alice-doesnt-live-here-anymore

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  January 1, 2011

  ajv2688

  A fantastic drama about a single mother and her son trying to make it in the world alone. It's very realistic and heartfelt.

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  December 30, 2010

  MeetMeinMontauk

  All right. I tried to get through this. I really did. I was just so bored and so uninterested in the characters I could not for the life of me suffer through it.
  Amazing that Scorsese has some amazing winners. And then he has stuff like this. I blame Netflix for continually recom... read moremending me to this.

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  December 6, 2010

  gokhale1

  Martin Scorsese's 1974 film "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" has one stand-out aspect to it. The characters in this film are very real..authentic flesh-and-blood characters, picked directly from your everyday life, people you can instantly relate to. Unfortunately this very qual... read moreity of the film ultimately lets it down as there is not much meat to pack in this project dealing with mundane events.
  
  So we have this 35 year old housewife, Alice who is trying to cope with a family life involving her almost-12 bratty son Tommy and her grumpy husband Donald. Donald is a trucker who seems to be clearly unhappy with his marriage. He dies in an unfortunate accident and Alice is left widowed with a son and not much of a clue as to what she would do next.
  
  Following a garage sale she puts up, she leaves with her son in order to go to Monterey to start a new living, possibly by getting a job somewhere as a singer, a career which she longed to pursue and did pursue once long ago. And so starts a road trip across Southwest America, where Alice puts up in cheap motels and tries to find a job as a singer so she can get enough money in order to finally reach her destination that is Monterey.
  
  The entire film then chronicles how she tries to make ends meet (that doesn't involve much apart from one job as a singer and next as a waitress) and the people she meets and befriends. This includes a fellow waitress, Flo (Diane Ladd) and the two men she gets involved with, Ben (Harvey Keitel) and David (Kris Kristofferson).
  
  The first half of the film, about her adventures in Phoenix, still involves some pretty good drama in Alice's attempts to find a job as a singer in a lounge bar, and her tryst with Ben.
  
  There are a couple or three marvelously executed scenes, a particularly memorable one involving a bar owner Mr Jacobs (Murray Moston) who Alice visits after long and tiring efforts of looking for a job and breaks down. Jacobs keeps repeating the line "I don't even have a piano in here" as an excuse for not offering her a job while Alice keeps bawling all the time. There are such fine moments including some others which highlight Scorsese's talent for turning seemingly simple scenes into delightfully entertaining ones.
  
  Amidst all this are other events involving candid conversations and cola+water fights between Alice and Tommy! Frankly, even though these scenes are meant to add the "warmth" or a seemingly amusing touch to the proceedings, they came across as boring to the point of being annoying.
  
  And come the second half and their entry in Tucson, followed by Alice's job as a waitress in Mel's Diner, and her romance with a divorced cowboy-like rancher, David (Kris Kristofferson), things start to get really tiresome. Sure, there are a couple of chuckle-inducing scenes and the entry of one of the best characters in the film, Flo (Diane Ladd) and some of Tommy's misadventures with the tomboyish Audrey (Jodie Foster). But then that really doesn't do much to hold our interest.
  
  
  The best part of the film are the performances, of course. Ellen Burstyn, in a class-A performance stands tall! The Academy Award was well-deserved. Diane Ladd's sharp-mouthed Flo is a close second. She gets some of the best lines in the film. Too bad she didn't get the Academy Award she was nominated for (Best Supporting Actress). Alfred Lutter as Alice's son acts really well, but he starts getting on the nerves in some scenes, but that again, is not the fault of his acting. It is that of his character! So it doesn't come as a surprise that at one point David's character hits him for being a brat! I would do the same, really!
  Harvey Keitel does well in his brief role.
  
  
  At the end of the day, it almost seemed like Scorsese shot about five-six clever scenes and decided to fill the rest of the film with boring, filler material!
  
  It isn't Scorsese's fault, really. It is, in fact, that of the script which doesn't really go anywhere and makes the film an underwhelming experience.

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• 
  
  August 16, 2010

  fb619846742

  An excellent, at times very depressing look at a single mother (Ellen Burstyn) after losing her husband (Billy Green Bush) to a car accident, who moves away with her son in order to get a fresh start. This is one of Scorsese's most overlooked near-masterpieces, really an honest, ... read morenever artificial look at a woman trying to find happiness. Although it takes a little while to get into it at first, once the Harvey Keitel character comes in, it's pretty gripping the rest of the way through. Burstyn won an Oscar for her turn here, and she definitely deserves it. It's really no question at this point that she is one of the best veteran actresses working in Hollywood today.

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• 
  
  September 4, 2009

  SirPant

  Great Scorsese film, with a superb cast. The relationship between mother and son is fantastic to watch and at times hilarious. I really liked the TV spin off show that came from this film too, it was on channel 4 at 6.00pm during the 80's and my sister and I never missed an episode!

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  February 3, 2009

  middleeasternfilms

  This is not your typical Scorcese film, leaving New York City out of the picture altogether in favor of the rural southwest. Burstyn won a much-deserved Oscar for her portrayal of Alice, a lady who packs up her son and heads for a new life with her barekly-tolerable son. She meet... read mores and leaves Scorcese favorite Keitel before settling down at a small motel and working at Mel's Diner, which is just next door. Kris Kristoferson shows up as the "perfect man" in her life...or is he? The film really keeps up a good, not-too-slow pace and keeps you guessing about it until the end. Not Scorcese's best, but still excellent anyway.

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• 
  
  January 4, 2009

  sononothing

  In 1974 Martin Scorsese followed a road less traveled and made the drama Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which is about a thritysomething housewife (Ellen Burstyn) who loses her husband in a traffic accident and decides to go back to singing in Monterey California taking her 11 ... read moreyear old son Tommy (Alfred Lutter) along. As they get into Tuscon she finds that singing engagements are hard to come by and starts working in Mel and Ruby's Diner as a waitress where she meets David (Kris Kristofferson) with whom a romance begins.
  
  Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore opens with what could be called an odd homage to the Wizard of Oz. Instead of a tornado carrying the little girl from her home its a marriage to an indifferent man and parenthood. Ellen Burstyn, fresh off her Exorcist gig plays Alice as the local rube who doesn't know life outside the nuclear family. It's a jungle out there. The only real sensible relationship she has between leaving her home and Mel's Diner is the sage advice of a veteran waitress named Flo (Diane Ladd) who gives her homespun advice that actually makes sense especially in her relationship with David.
  
  Alice as a whole is a depressing story about a woman whose life is turned upside down and as she tries to catch her dreams she keeps getting stomped on. Yet Scorsese throws humor in throughout the movie as a way to counteract the drabness that has been thrust upon them with most of the good lines going to Tommy. People who complain about Tommy being too annoying have obviously not been around any 11 year old boys lately.
  
  This is one of those Scorsese curves that he throws at us from time to time. Alice was wedged between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver almost as a way to drive into the ditch and try something different.

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• 
  
  April 7, 2008

  kenstachnik

  The world just shits all over Ellen Burstyn in this surprisingly stylish and touching film by Martin Scorsese

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• Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt
• Kris Kristofferson as David
• Billy Green Bush as Donald Hyatt
• Alfred Lutter as Alice's Son Tommy
• Diane Ladd as Flo
• Lelia Goldoni as Neighbor Bea
• Harvey Keitel as Ben Everhart
• Jodie Foster as Young Girl Audrey
• Mia Bendixsen as Alice Age 8

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• Who directed "Boxcar Bertha", "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", "New York, New York", "Kundun", "The Last Waltz" and "The Age of Innocence"?  Answer »
• What film did Ellen Burstyn win her Oscar for?  Answer »
• Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) was adapted into a long-running TV sitcom. Name it.   Answer »
• What three people connect Taxi Driver and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore?  Answer »

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