The conceit at the center of Still, the new documentary about Michael J. Fox, is that before Parkinson’s, Fox was never still — in body or in soul — but since Parkinson’s, he is still in soul, even if his body shakes.
Early on, the film director asks Fox, “Before Parkinson’s, what would it mean to be still?” Fox answers, “I wouldn’t know.”
This framing makes the story of Still one of accepting limitations—which humans since Adam and Eve have had a notoriously hard time doing. It wasn’t easy for Fox, either. He recounts the various ways he hid his diagnosis from the world for seven years (I’ll let you sit with the biblical imagery). During this time, the trembling started in his left hand, so he found objects to hold or things to do with his hand on-screen, causing great pain to his hand in order to mask it. Not surprisingly, Fox became an alcoholic. He kept dopamine pills in his pocket to pop as needed — “crushed up” like “Smarties.” He told his wife about his illness, but few others.
The hiding, however, began even before Parkinson’s. “Actors don’t become actors because they are brimming with self-confidence,” Fox says, “An actor’s burning ambition is to spend as much time as possible pretending to be somebody else.”
As the New York Times review notes, the documentary impresses this double-ness upon us visually. It tells the story of Fox’s real life through scenes and lines from his movies. One segment recounts the period of Fox’s life where he was simultaneously on the sets of Back to the Future and Family Ties. The pace of this season of life was so whirling — back and forth, back and forth — that Fox would forget who he was, which set he was on, and which role he was playing. Which, when you begin to think of it, sounds like … nevermind.
In Fox’s case, the easy psychoanalysis here is that this is a man who is famously short. Like Napoleon (or Zacchaeus) he needed to be a big man. So he found acting. But one need not be short to appreciate the appeal: what you’re saying is I get to play someone else? all the time? and people will buy it?
But as Fox says, “Gravity is real, even if you only fall from my height,” and eventually, the burdens of hiding weighed him down until he crashed. After a particularly wild night, Fox wakes up hungover, and his wife asks him if this is the life he wants. The answer is no. And so, his journey towards honesty begins.
Fox isn’t rosy about the road to healing. He says his first year of not drinking was torture. And while it was relieving to finally tell the world about his Parkinson’s, it was also terrifying to walk on set again for the first time, anticipating the looks and the stares.
What makes Fox so endearing is not only this honesty, but also his self-deprecation. “Wow. I feel four feet tall,” he once said on stage after receiving an Oscar. This is a man who started out making people laugh in order to avoid reality, but now laughs at himself in order to face it.
Finishing the documentary, one loves Fox more than ever, but the real star might be his wife, Tracy Pollan. Once an actress herself, she has given up almost everything for Fox. She gave up her acting career to stay at home with the kids, so Michael could travel the world and remain a star. She stayed with him through his alcoholism. She drives him to his doctor appointments. She makes fun of him. The filmmaker asks Fox to describe her in one word, and he says clarity. “In your light we see light” (Ps 36:9) — and in the light of her love, Michael can see, and accept, himself.
In one of the opening scenes, Fox leaves his Manhattan apartment and barely makes it out the door before falling down on the sidewalk. A pedestrian who would have, in another life, asked Michael for his autograph, instead stops to ask him if he’s okay. Once invincible, his life has been reduced (or expanded?) to that of the monk who famously said, when asked what they do in the monastery, “We fall down and we get up, we fall down and we get up.”
You forget how young he was when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Twenty-nine. This is a reminder of the common refrain of disability literature, that the proper distinction between human beings is not “disabled” and “able-bodied” but instead “disabled” and “temporarily able-bodied.” All of our bodies will break down at some point. For some, it simply starts sooner.
All of this makes Still a story for Ash Wednesday — and for the reality check that is Lent. It is an invitation into so many versions of the word “still.” To be still and stop chasing whatever it is we chase; to be still and know that God is God; and to know that the crucified God — like Tracy with Michael — loves us still, in spite of addiction, hiding, falling, and death.
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5 responses to “Michael J. Fox’s Road to Healing”
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Great piece, and yes apt for Ash Wednesday. Thank you.
Excellent review!
I was fortunate enough to see the premiere of this movie at Sundance in January 2023. Fox was present for the movie and afterwards did one of the most inspiring Q&A’s you’ll ever watch. It is on Youtube — go check it out. For someone who has every reason to be angry and hate the world, he has no bitterness and instead talks about his love of his wife, his family, being an inspiration for others, and living what he described as an amazing life.
I am the same age as Michael and was very concerned when I heard of the difficulties he was facing, as I ran around in my hectic life chasing my kids. I continued to follow his career and whatever People magazine would share with us. About three months ago, give or take a few weeks, I stumbled on his documentary and sat down to watch it. I cried, unaware that few weeks after that, I would be diagnosed with Parkinsons. I am still processing what the future might hold, but he is a wonderful example of the good and hardship life brings. I only hope I can do it with the grace, dignity and humor I have seen in him through the years.
Thank you, Jordan, for describing so memorably and beautifully how giving and receiving true love stills and dignifies us “temporarily-abled humans,” even in the face of sin, disease and death.
I have lost my dad, and my brother to Parkinson’s. My sister and I have essential tremor. I don’t know if there’s a connection there or not? I’m just trying to learn as much as I can.