STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE

Still: a Michael J. Fox Movie doesn’t just coast by on the winning personality of its subject: the documentary finds an excellent balance between fun, earnestness and touching anecdotes.

The new Davis Guggenheim documentary Still: a Michael J. Fox Movie benefits tremendously from the fact that Fox spent much of his life, from his teens onward, on the small and big screen.

This allows the movie to cull clips from films and TV-shows and use them as easily ralatable emotive anchorpoints for the actor to tell the story of his rise to fame and subsequent decline due to Parkinson's disease. The result is truly remarkable as Fox' on-screen and off-screen life entangle nearly perfectly.

It's also a much less slick or hagiographic tale than you might expect from a movie with a Hollywood superstar as its subject, though Still is not totally immune to those accusations. Overall though, you are easily swept up in the movie, which is briskly paced, never dull and always engaging.

Part of the reason is of course Michael J. Fox' own winning personality, which still shines through despite the clear - and never hidden - discomfort Parkinson's disease caused during his talking head interviews that neatly link the documentary together.

But credits is also due to Guggenheim. The director doesn't set out to preach, ask sympathy or peep into the life of a famous face. He merely wants to celebrate an intriguing career story and invites you to find similarities with the joys and obstacles we all encounter in our lives.

release: 2023

director: Davis Guggenheim

starring: Michael J. Fox