Still: A Michael J Fox Movie

Available on Apple TV now

Davis Guggenheim’s poignant documentary about the life of Michael J. Fox is certainly as moving as anyone familiar with the Back to the Future star’s life would expect it to be, but nonetheless adopts a refreshingly frank approach to an otherwise tragic story.

For those that do not know, Fox’s life was altered radically when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and Still mostly focuses on how the actor and his family have adapted to this cruel and unexpected setback. Fox is an excellent interviewee and is refreshingly honest about his condition and steadfastly refuses to ever be maudlin, which ensures that this picture never falls foul of some of the typical tropes associated with its genre.

Most of the credit for this ought to go to Fox and his inspiring outlook on life, but Guggenheim – best known for the Academy Award winning An Inconvenient Truth – also deserves praise for the candour with which he broaches a sensitive topic. Editor Michael Harte and production company Concordia Studio also deserve shout-outs for the innovative way in which they utilise archive footage to retell Fox’s life story, an approach which lends Still a pleasingly retro aesthetic that is befitting of a topic that is so synonymous with 1980s pop culture.   

Above all else though, this is an inspiring character study that reminded me that we are not defined by our struggles, more so how we choose to tackle them.