“I suffer but I’m not pathetic. At the beginning I elaborated sadness and depression by drinking»- Corriere.it

He rocks his head nonstop and has difficulty doing everyday things, he can’t brush his teeth. But of himself Michael J. Fox He says: “I’m not pathetic”. What happens when an incurable optimist is confronted with an incurable disease? The former child prodigy of Hollywood who embodied the American dream with his soap and water gaze brings the evidence of the disease on his altered face, on his trembling hands. The images alternate between fiction and scenes from his films (“that finger isn’t mine, maybe it’s someone else’s, or maybe it was a message for the future”), family home movies. Here he is next to Cassius Clay who suffered from the same disease, or in the photos as a child, a blond wad. And then the years of parties, Ferraris, autographs. But above all there is, today, the first-person account of a drama that lives with a smile.

He doesn’t give up his “incurable” optimism, he makes it clear that the best gifts are had in the worst moments. «I abused alcohol when, at the age of 29, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Then I found myself.” The film in which he tells what fate has in store for him is Still: The Michael J. Fox Story. It could be titled Still Alive, Still alive, and take on so many meanings. The director is Davis Guggenheim, he was very successful at Sundance and will be available on Apple TV+ from May 12.

The actor talks about himself with an open heart, in the unlikely tale of “a small boy raised on a Canadian military base” who touched the lights of Hollywood in 1980, and got burned tripping with Parkinson’s disease. But he says life can still be good. It’s a private journey he’s never shown, including the post-diagnosis years when he was a carefree, light-hearted actor. It is the faithful chronicle of his triumphs and his defeats. Here it is with the personal trainer and with the physiotherapist, physical and vocal exercises. He didn’t want anything apologetic and compassionate. He says that in the early days “nobody outside my family knew”; confesses that “not having a way out is the most terrible thing”. But the film has the light touch that still encompasses the essence of the actor.

Here he is again interviewed years ago on Dave Letterman’s talk show, already ill, checkmate pietism: «Kids are great, my kids ask me: do you want to stop moving all the time?». “With that mixture of adventure and romance, comedy and drama, watching the film will be like… Like a Michael J. Fox film,” says the director, who had read an interview with
New York Times in which the actor recounted “the brutal fall he had at his home in the kitchen, he broke his arm, he was alone, he couldn’t reach the phone, he insisted that his family go out”. He’ll be all right, he told the family, in that very American way of saying.

In an old TV interview they ask him: are you aware that the public will look at you with different eyes? And he: «Someone will reject me, others will not understand, they will not accept me». The director had thought that the film was “a simple operation”. The heart is a conversation between the two of them. And it is as if at the age of 61 Michael’s light-heartedness is renewed in an illusory spark of eternity.

The director didn’t have a list of questions. «Yes, it’s an incurable disease, and it doesn’t scare me. When the doctors first spoke, I was incredulous, I said, well this can’t happen to me. In the last three years I have broken both femurs, face, one hand. I broke a lot of things. I realized that I could die. When David asked me if I was in pain, I told him that I suffer every day. It’s not just the physical handicap, but also the emotional one, waking up every day and having to slip through it all. Illness is another incredible segment of my incredible life. It is a challenge with the disease, with the reaction I see in the eyes of the people I meet, with the possibility of still doing good things».

His
Back to the Future (like the film that gave him wings) sees him as a testimonial of the disease, has a research foundation, has played in
The Good Wife (challenging stereotypes about the disabled) a lawyer with Parkinson’s who uses it to manipulate juries. As a young actor he had perfect acting rhythm and timing, like a great comedian; now his words come in jerks, or slowed down.

«I left home at 17 and at 21 I became the new movie star. I was confronted with success, joy and freaking out. At first, I worked through my sadness and depression by drinking too much. But that couldn’t be the end of the story. I looked for a new way to win and get by. With the help of my wife Tracy, I made it.” Her wife never let go of him. “I don’t want to miss what comes next. If I’m happy, it’s because of my family, Tracy, who I met on the set of the sitcom
Keaton House

, and my four children who love life, and this, today, means something». There is a before and after in his existence. But the aftermath is also full of life.