Danny Blankenship Finally watched "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" after many years and it's a stand up and standout performance from Ellen Burstyn as the film is a showcase of journey proving that life is a travel on the road in the form of change and meeting new people opening up new chances.Alice(Burstyn)is a mother with a young boy named Tommy and after the sudden and unexpected death of her husband Don(Billy Green Bush)she starts a new life as Alice begins a trip from New Mexico across the west to go back to her birth state of California to start a new life.Along the way plenty of things are a spin and twist like Alice having a relationship with a younger man that doesn't work. Speaking of work the only thing she can get is jobs of being a waitress. Yet thru it all it's her dream and hope of being a singer that moves her to survive and live on.Overall good road journey film of life it proves it's tough and one must stand up and battle and face their journey head on and that's just what the Alice character did, and plus it was an A+ performance from Ellen Burstyn.

g-bodyl Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is an entertaining, well-respected film created by the legendary Martin Scorsese. Marty opened the eyes of movie-lovers all over the world with his 1973 film, 'Mean Streets." He further opened eyes a year later with this film. Despite the film be entertaining to watch, it also shows the director has better days ahead of him. Through all of cinema history, an issue in Hollywood has always been women and their lack of representation. I think it was a necessary, but bold move for Marty to tackle a film that shows life through a woman's eyes. On the whole, the film smoothly changes between drama and comedy. There are some intense dramatic moments, but there are some laugh-out-loud moments. Especially when it came to the interactions between mother and son.Martin Scorsese's film is about a woman named Alice, who is a housewife. After her abusive husband dies in an accident, Alice embarks on a road trip with her only son to find a better life for themselves. But that is easier said than done. Alice learns many things about life as well that finding love may still exist.The film features many fine performances, with Ellen Burstyn in particular. She does a mighty fine job as Alice, the woman seeking a new life. Her interactions with her son are rather nutty and quite genius. Speaking of which, Alfred Lutter does a good job as her son. He can be annoying sometimes, rather admittedly. Kris Kristofferson does a good job in one of his first roles as a romantic interest of Alice. Finally, I liked Diane Ladd's performance as the waitress co-worker of Alice who gets through lifer with quite an attitude.Overall, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a really good dramedy about searching for meaning in life. It may not be Martin Scorsese's best feature, but he is learning fast. The story and the performances are top-notch, given the very low budget. But sometimes the tone of the film and how it can quickly change takes me out of the film every here and then. But it's a well-written film that delivers consistent performances and now we all know what to expect from a Scorsese film.My Grade: B+

eric262003 Winner of Best Actress for Ellen Burstyn and nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Diane Ladd and Best Original Script for Robert Getchell and directed by one of the greatest directors of all time, Martin Scorsese, not to mention, the inspiration of the long- running Emmy Award winning TV series, "Alice", "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", takes you on journey of finding opportunity in the big world out there and overcoming huge obstacles to achieve the pinnacle of independence when the going gets tough. It's a simple tale of a widowed mother with very little cash takes her husband's death as an opportunity to follow an ambition that was stalled due to her loyalty in her husband and her son Tommy (Alfred Lutter III). The story is saturated with abuse, rejection, mother and son disputes and the love for each other that comes between these wedges. But through all the clawing and scratching towards Alice's not so perfect, the movie most of all is filled with optimism that anyone can fill their dreams if they have the drive to reach it. One of the best traits about this movie is that it refrains from being overly artistic or poetic. It succeeds in making every scene as real as possible which makes it more interesting an provocative. The performances are what we've really came to see. Ellen Burstyn is a legendary actress and she truly exhibits her amazing acting ability and was showcased to near perfection. She truly catches your heart and the hearts among millions of fans who have watched this emotional comedy-drama. The story, her character and the flow of the story will melt your heart faster than a snowman in a microwave. Even though I always find road trip movies are the laziest scripts ever put on film, "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" succeeds in keeping every scene and dialogue real. The mother and son interaction between Alice and Tommy are rich and very convincing. It is what you would expect from how a mother converses with her son. Their conversations will have you laughing and will likely have you in tears, but no matter what, there is seldom a dull moment when Alice and Tommy are together. Alice knows that she was not always the perfect mother and that she's doing everything she can to repair the damaged relationship between her and her son. And even though she's screwed up once too many times for us to even care about her, there is still that little light out there that makes us root for her in her quest to find happiness and to rectify the situation she has to build the love and faith towards her son. You can't dismiss Alice by not trying to give her son the life he deserved and like always kids rebel that way feeling that their needs and wants are more important than the fact that you can't always get what you want. Together they keep us engaged and really reflect on the younger audience who may have had verbal matches with their parents. But in the end the love between them is the ultimate compromise each one embodies and that makes this film worthwhile.Burstyn was amazing in her role as Alice Hyatt. Sure she was imperfect and it makes you cringe after one stupid decision after another we realize that no one is perfect and everyone at one time has done stupid things. In the end, I cared about her and her son and wanted very much to see her emerge victorious in achieving her goals whether little ones or ones that are more complex. Rounding out the supporting cast that had me intrigued was the performance from Harvey Keitel as Ben. He was just outstanding even though he was sadly underused. At one point in the movie, he seemed very likable at first but without warning, he goes 360 digress and before you know it he becomes a real jerk. He comes across as a warm guy with a trusting smile, but then later we didn't expect him to be a two-timing wife-beating a-hole. Keitel can play those kind of characters in his sleep. The other character that got my attention was the tough,mouthy hard-working waitress Flo Castleberry played by Diane Ladd. Alice eventually ended up working as waitress at a greasy spoon diner run by the shrewd cantankerous owner Mel Sharples (Vic Tayback). Ladd truly deserved her Best Supporting Acrress nomination. Many people get frustrated for not caring about people and the situations they're in, but to me, my anguish stems from caring way too much. I wanted to see Alice succeed. I wanted Tommy to get a better life for himself once he reaches adulthood. The story-telling is custom made to keep you on your toes and we root for them like we do when the Yankees beat the Red Sox in baseball or vice versa. And what's really great is that it's not the end all for Alice and Tommy, but just the beginning of their new lives and that it'll be a long time before settling in. This truly is a very underrated from Martin Scorsese and truly one of the best films in 1974.

Rockwell_Cronenberg I don't think my disdain for Martin Scorsese is much of a secret for anyone who knows my taste in film, so it came as a welcome surprise when I found myself being moved and impressed by his 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Telling the story of a recently widowed woman (Ellen Burstyn) who takes her son on the road, this was a touching study of a woman struggling to find herself in a time when many women determined their worth based on the man who was at their side. In a lot of ways it takes an interesting look at the era in which it was made, but even today it stands strong as a look into this woman being stripped bare of the things she thought were important and being forced to find out what really matters to her.She finds a few romantic partners throughout the film and it starts to get an "all men are evil" theme going on which I was getting worried about, but Robert Getchell's script ends up coming back around full circle to an ending (that was created by actor Kris Kristofferson, who plays one of her lovers, the day before they shot it) that was touching and spoke to the journey this character was brought down. There's a Wizard of Oz metaphor that bookends her evolution, which I found touching without being poured on too much.Scorsese, known for his gritty approach, was surprisingly adept at bringing this woman's story to the screen. This is a film that could have easily gone down the saccharine, cheesy Lifetime route if it was handled improperly by it's director, but instead Scorsese is able to make it feel shockingly genuine all the way through. There are moments that are incredibly uncomfortable, such as Burstyn making her way around town desperate to find a job to support her and her son, along with ones that are genuinely terrifying, like when Harvey Keitel's character punches through a glass window in order to break into her hotel room in a brutal display of male aggression.There's a shift in this character that occurs over the course of the film, slowly developing from a woman who lets men control her into a woman who isn't afraid to stand up for herself and her son, that is portrayed brilliantly by Burstyn. She won an Oscar for her role and it was incredibly well-deserved, along with the fellow nomination that came to Diane Ladd, who steals all of her scenes as a waitress at a diner where Burstyn's character eventually begins to work at. I think it's the mother/son dynamic that made the film work the most for me though, as I found a lot to personally connect to in it.As an early child of divorce, I spent a lot of time growing up with just my mother and myself, and the relationship between them in this film felt so true in regards to my own experience. The way that the two would drive each other mad one second, but the next they would come back together and be laughing or supporting one another. I felt a deep connection there that touched me a lot. Ellen Burstyn's character here reminded me a lot my own mother, and watching her evolve on this path to finding herself meant quite a bit to me. Solid work by everyone involved here.