It’s pretty impossible not to love Michael J. Fox. At first he was the lovable Reaganite from Family Ties, then the great teenage everyman Marty McFly, or Teen Wolf. Eventually, that love transformed into empathy as Parkinson’s disease slowly took over Fox’s body. And that cute boy became an icon of a man we know and love today. Still is a loving look at that journey that got Fox to where he is today, and a great primer for parents to get their kids to watch Back to the Future for the first time!
Davis Guggenheim, the Inconvenient Truth/He Named Me Malala documentarian probably stumbled into this because he’s married to Elizabeth Shue, Fox’s girlfriend in the 2nd/3rd Back to the Futures. But that’s a good thing: the seasoned pro keeps Still from, well, becoming too still with talking heads. Instead, Guggenheim keeps things moving. During Fox’s rise to stardom, he uses scenes from MJF’s shows/movies with Michael doing voiceover at the same time to capture Fox’s constant need to keep moving/pushing forward. The movie is filtered through Fox’s point of view, so no other talking heads are necessary. Since Fox was filmed EVERYWHERE after 1985, we just get all the video footage of those people important to Michael: home movies of his wife Tracy Pollan and his kids Sam, Aquinnah, Schuyler, and Esme, and all the stars/interviews he interacted with along the way.
Guggenheim brings Still to a halt more in present day, as we see the effects Parkinson’s continues to have on the talented star. Paralleling Fox’s rise to stardom is also the rise of Parkinson’s in his body, from a small constantly moving pinky finger to the full fledged body motion he goes to therapy for daily at this point in his life. This section reframes all the supposed offscreen issues Fox faced: drug/alcohol use, women, etc, as reactions to his fear of that Parkinson’s diagnosis. Guggenheim and Michael J. Fox do go to great efforts to show an interesting truthful dichotomy. Those Parkinson’s fears hold very true still today: the actor puts in constant work just to live day to day. But also, now that Fox stopped fighting who he was, he’s probably as content as he has been as a person. The seemingly contradictory truths fit well with how Michael J. Fox thinks of himself, always poking fun at the contradictory nature of his life as a whole: equally silly and sad.
Michael J. Fox probably did Still knowing that he probably won’t be able to be on camera because of his disease soon. There’s no way you won’t be more impressed by what he has accomplished since that Parkinson’s diagnosis. Fox is living proof that a disease doesn’t have to wholly define you. It can be a part of who you are while you bring the rest of your amazing self with it. Great Scott! Nope, Great Fox!