Ray Richmond: The Michael J. Fox doc film ‘Still’ is a life-affirming masterpiece
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If producer-director Davis Guggenheim winds up coming away with an Emmy Award for his phenomenal Apple TV+ documentary film of Michael J. Fox’s life and career entitled “Still” that premiered May 12 on the streamer, his best move would be to immediately dedicate the win to the spectacular job done by his editor, a fellow named Michael Harte. I have in fact never seen a more brilliant job of storytelling and production flow than that turned in by Harte, who merges the personal and professional lives of Fox so brilliantly that it almost takes your breath away.
Unlike the majority of so-called celebrity docs that get made, “Still” doesn’t focus on friends, colleagues or even family members to tell the story of the subject at its center. It shines an unblinking spotlight on Fox himself, one that can be raw and harrowing to take in given the star’s ongoing degeneration from Parkinson’s disease. But the real innovation is in how Guggenheim and his editor work together to use clips scattered from throughout Fox’s extraordinary career to make points about the various twists and turns taken by a life tossed into chaos by an early-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis at the age of 29. The effect of using the clips to move Fox’s story forward is electrifying.
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The film is honestly a life-affirming masterpiece from start to finish, a dazzling collage of interviews, clips and narrated biography. It’s also a poignant, powerful and intensely moving blend of achingly raw and honest personal observations from Fox along with those career moments that are skillfully interwoven to illustrate his consistently superb work. We forget what a charismatic meteor he was while exploding onto the scene as Alex P. Keaton on “Family Ties” and then of course as Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” movies, in “Light of Day,” in “Spin City.” He was The Little Actor Who Could. He was tireless and irrepressible, not to mention irresistible.
Then of course everything changed with the Parkinson’s diagnosis in 1991, which as we learn in “Still” Fox successfully hid for seven years at great psychological cost. And indeed, the core of the new film is the brutal Parkinson’s reality he’s living with today. We see the enormous physical toll the disease has taken on him, the broken bones it’s caused from taking falls, the assistance he requires. The unfathomable strained is etched all over his face. There is no sugarcoating any of it by Guggenheim and certainly not be Fox himself. Quite the contrary, he’s completely open and candid about it all, stripping away the artifice and removing any sense of delicacy or tiptoeing around Exhibit A.
Yet the movie is not about tragedy or playing the victim but instead the triumph of existing with the disease and wringing from life the highest quality Fox can muster despite the decline he faces daily. “Still” is an inspiring piece of work all around. Despite the horrible hand Fox was dealt physically, there isn’t an ounce of “woe’s me” or self-pity in the man, which gives the movie its unusual power. There is no dwelling on sadness because Fox has refused to allow the disease to defeat him, leading to a viewing experience that’s at once heartbreaking and uplifting.
As if Fox could be any more beloved and respected than he already is, “Still” elevates him still further. As he inches toward his 62nd birthday on June 9, he’s been out beating the pavement promoting and singing the praises of the movie. Despite his physical limitations, he wouldn’t have it any other way. The guy has raised more than $2 billion for Parkinson’s research through his Michael J. Fox Foundation, even though he seemingly understands that any treatment breakthroughs will benefit others more than him. His tireless efforts and the way he carries himself inspire words like “hero” to be attached to him, though he’d no doubt dismiss that description as absurd.
The industry has long recognized Fox as a rare jewel. He was paid homage by the film academy with an honorary Oscar (the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award) in November 2022. Meanwhile, it’s inconceivable that “Still” will be passed over in the Documentary or Nonfiction Special category at the Emmys this year. In fact, it’s got to be the frontrunner or mighty close to it. Guggenheim – a 2007 Oscar winner for the Al Gore doc “An Inconvenient Truth” – has already won once in the category, two years ago as the executive producer of another Apple TV+ entry, “Boys State.”
Anyway, don’t miss “Still.” It’s a superb piece of work that’s got Emmy written all over it.
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