In the heart of a strong-willed, defiant little girl is a dreamscape of songbird stardom. Or at least so for Alice Hyatt (played by Ellen Burstyn) in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). But life settles away from this grown-out fantasy and into all-American suburbia. Hyatt’s dreams get overshadowed by her smart-mouthed 11-year-old son and abusive truck-driving husband. But after his sudden death, Alice is now afforded a new lease on life and her dream is now ready for realization. She crams her son and what’s left of this life into a car and hits the open Southwestern road, ready for Monterey. Nothing can stop our Alice except perhaps the ingrain of an uncertain self.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, directed by Martin Scorsese and driven by uncredited producer Ellen Burstyn, shares a portrait of womanhood on a platter of humour and fear. The chronicle is not one of an easily courageous woman taking on a life of her own, freedom torch in hand—it’s a life with sewn apprehension, one of painful male dependency.
During the road trip of motels and dive bars, Alice’s promise of Monterey sinks deeper and her chanteuse dream drags back into a familiar abusive pattern.
There’s something documentary-like about the movie, which makes sense as a large part of it is improvisational. Throughout all 112 minutes, Burstyn is personal and sincere. Playful handheld camera work and wide lenses create a real-life window of the connection, rejection, love, pain, and riot of a resourceful single mother. Interactions between Alice and her son, Tommy (Alfred Lutter), play out like outtakes. A scene of the two in a motel-room water fight could easily be ripped out of a home video. Even at times slapstick, their relationship is genuine and easy to mistake as actual.
Beginning to slowly wave her dream goodbye, Alice seeks a job as a waitress where she meets Flo (played by Diane Ladd), of many pearls of crude wisdom. Performances by the two, particularly one sunbathing in the alley behind the diner, are intimately tender and comedic. Not a second between the pair is dull.
A travel log like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is at times harrowing. Seemingly charming men deceive her trust as she’s desperate for support. Meeting convenient bachelor David (played by Kris Kristofferson) during a shift at the diner, Alice takes a final bow at her singing career. Her fear has won, no gloriously championed Rosie the Riveter standing alone strong. But she’s a heroine in her own right and a survivor of it all.
4/5