Still (2023)

This is a lovely look back at Micheal J. Fox' career, with the perspective of his Parkinson's disease diagnosis, is his attempt to say that he is full of life, funny, and resilient. On the evidence presented here – a dazzling collage of interviews, dramatisations, snappily chosen film and TV clips, family footage and narrated biography – it’s hard to disagree. Obviously, he’s found it tough, yet the 61-year-old’s sparkiness and dry humour shine through. Having achieved stardom in his early 20s, Fox found himself in his 30s hiding from, and then publicly facing up to, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease – a condition that he believed (as many do) only affected older people. As a child, he was always on the move, constitutionally unable to sit still. It was partly that kinetic quality that landed him teenage roles in TV shows. He became the star of Family Ties thanks to his electrifying comic timing – a scene-stealing ability to make the softest of gags land with a bang, a quality that launched him into his fabled movie career. The real revelations, however, lie in the depiction of Fox’s family life, most notably his marriage to actor Tracy Pollan, who first won his heart by calling him “a complete fucking asshole”, and whose unswerving love leaves him all but speechless when he’s asked what she means to him, save for one word: “Clarity”. When the narrator asks him “How’s Tracy?” in one unguarded moment, he replies “Married to me,” before adding with perfect timing: “… still.”