I don’t know if I could nail down how many times I’ve watched “Back to the Future.” The first one came out when I was a kid, and I nearly wore out our VHS copy of that movie. To this day, I think it has one of the best opening sequences of any movie. And a lot of my love for that movie has to do with the inimitable Michael J. Fox and his portrayal of Marty McFly. I haven’t watched everything from his impressive filmography, but he has long been one of my favorite actors. As such, I have been awaiting the release of “Still,” the David Guggenheim documentary currently playing on Apple TV+.
The documentary follows Fox’s career from the very beginning. The pictures showing him compared to his peers really highlights just how young he looked, especially at the beginning of his career. It shows how he struggled to find his groove until he was able to read for Alex P. Keaton on “Family Ties.” His career then exploded, moving quickly to movies, including filming “Back to the Future” concurrently with “Teen Wolf.”
Fox had an incredible run, and then he was hit with the news that he had Parkinson’s disease. The documentary talks about how he hid his diagnosis from nearly everyone with over medicating and alcoholism. The tragedy of his diagnosis was compounded by the choices that he made. He talks about how he found ways to hide his tremors until he held a press conference seven years after his 1991 diagnosis, and how when he came clean, he was able to stop masking.
This is an incredibly powerful documentary. Fox narrates the entire thing himself, the stories being shared from the books that he has written about his life. There are obviously lots of clips from his career, but we see plenty of him as he is now, tremors and all. He explains one of his worst falls and talks about how he refuses to hide himself any more.
The editing on this is really lovely. They were able to find bits of dialogue from Fox’s many film and television appearances that flowed perfectly with the story they are telling, with some lines feeling incredibly prescient. The mix of reenactment, films clips, and interview segments all flow together beautifully, giving us a glimpse into the life of someone many of us watched on screen for decades.
Gifted actors are able to introduce us to characters for a short amount of time and help us feel like we’ve known them our whole lives. In “Still,” Fox shares with us not a character, but an honest look at himself, a man who has ridden some incredibly high moments, and has weathered some incredibly low moments as well. I have always felt lucky to have had the chance to get to know Fox’s characters and watching this film, I appreciate the chance to get to know him a bit as well.
ALISE CHAFFINS is a Morgantown writer who loves movies and sharing her opinions. She reviews a movie from a streaming service every Saturday and one newly in theaters every Sunday. Find more at MacGuffin or Meaning on Substack.
