David Lepe
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Photo: Archive
If I spent much of the eighties wearing a vest and dreaming that I could ride a skateboard without breaking my head, I can blame Michael J. Fox for that. This Canadian-American actor is an eighties icon. He conquered us with his interpretation of Marty McFly, his charming and incredulous character in Back to the Future (1985).
After that, I can assure you that I have seen almost all of his movies. Even in the 21st century, I loved his quirky and moving appearances on the television series Scrubs, as a brilliant but troubled surgeon with obsessive-compulsive disorder; later, in The Good Wife, playing a manipulative lawyer with a neural condition.
So, when watching the documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023), on Apple TV, I was surprised by the bravery and simplicity with which the actor tells his own story. This one takes us back in time and without the need for a Delorean (did you catch the reference?). We can notice that since his school years he looked younger. He was a goblin, Michael states in the film.
He doesn’t miss an opportunity to make a joke about the disease.
He also tells us how he almost drowned in poverty after betting on his talent in acting. They combine their narration with a wonderful edition in which they use behind-the-scenes footage from the series Family Ties and scenes from films such as Teen Wolf (1985), Bright Lights, Big City (1988), Casualties of War (1989) and Doc Hollywood (1991), among others.
And it shows us something that has been talked about a lot, but shown little: The advances of Parkinson’s on your body. First, he started with a finger on her left hand, then moved to his arm. In a very bold way, the actor made special, choreographic movements during filming to hide the involuntary tremors of his hand, and to withstand the pressure of his long working hours and to hide his illness, since he drank a lot of alcohol.
Michael confesses that during the first days of his diagnosis, reading the pamphlets about Parkinson’s disease, he could only feel that he would be defeated. It must be the cosmic price for my success, comments the actor. But within all this dense story, a fun Michael J. Fox can be seen.
He doesn’t miss a single opportunity to share a joke or joke about the disease. When asked how he sees himself in 20 years, his eyebrows furrow and he considers his answer for a few seconds.
Then he expresses: I will be dead or I will be a pickled cucumber.” Added to this is a moment from the hilarious episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which Larry David is convinced that Michael has actions that bother him and uses his illness as an excuse. In the scene, he hands David a carbonated soft drink, which explodes in his hands.
You did it on purpose, Larry accuses. Michael just sees him, raises his shoulders and responds: “Parkinson.” By the way, the word that titles this documentary, Still, can refer to both the rigidity and tremors of Parkinson’s patients; as well as the translation still, pointing out that Michael is here and that he still laughs, cries, triumphs, falls… lives.
2023-10-13 06:38:23
#Monitor #Music #Awards #Guatemala #waste #talent
