Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Robert Gretchell
In 2019, when asked how he dealt so well with pressure on the basketball court, Portland Trailblazer star Damian Lillard downplayed life on the hardwood, highlighting a much more modest but common gauntlet: “Pressure is the single mom trying to scuffle and pay her rent.”
Lillard was right then and is right now, but he’d be especially right in the 70s. Here to support that claim is Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the story of a widowed mother who pours her scamp of a son, all their earthly belongings, and the “buck fifty” in her pocket, into a beat-up station wagon and sets out for the west coast following her husband’s death.
With no working experience, and a singing talent she’s waffling on, she’s about to find out how many pool joints and smoky leatherbound bars in the dusty southwest have a need for an in-house singer. The journey across arid lands soon begins to feel like it should be a Western.
As it was for the pioneers who made the trek before them, the road feels like hostile terrain through which Alice’s car bumbles along, vulnerable to the elements and foes lying in wait. Back then, it’d be bandits and wild animals, but here it’s grimy saloon owners, sweet-talking abusers, bare minimum wage and the heart-snatching doubt whether it’s all going to work out.
Alice In The Cities was a newfangled story at the time of its release with plenty of its elements still valid and present today. The fortitude required by single-income caretakers and how any vulnerability is preyed upon will tug at your heart strings, but there’s also inspiration to be found in the resilience taught by life’s many hard knocks (should you get that far).
Alice’s fight gives this drama plenty of grit, but it also carries a feminist banner waving for any woman who wants to live life on her own terms. Like its protagonist, Alice is a trailblazer throwing someone like this up on the screen, championing her beliefs, and treating her like a Western hero of old.
Ellen Burstyn delivers something true and deep as Alice, revealing more and more as the movie goes along. Burstyn has the same mercurial and non-conformist energy that Diane Keaton was celebrated for in Annie Hall, released three years later, only Keaton did it looking cool in New York City while Burstyn cuts this figure in greasy establishments and dingy motel rooms. Alice is no hero, however, and Burstyn shows how the scar tissue forms in real time.
It’ll surprise you to know Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is also a very funny movie. We can thank the chemistry between Burstyn and Alfred Lutter III for that, as Lutter thrills with an all-time kid performance as Tommy, a bit of a hellraiser who can get away with it because of comedic timing. If you ever heard a parent wistfully say “It’s a good thing I love him…” and didn’t quite get what that meant, Alice and Tommy can show you.
Altogether, Scorsese’s road movie is one of those quintessential 70s movies that dare to have complicated protagonists and shape-shifting moods. It can be rough and terrifying and cartwheel into buddy comedy with remarkable grace, painting vivid portraits of a deep cast of characters. Still, none of them are more vivid than a woman striking out for herself and clutching her guns as she rambles on into an unknown future.
Mikkel Frederiksen 