Alice doesn't live here anymore

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore en a 1974 American film written by Robert Getchell and directed by Martin Scorsese. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her pre-teen son through the American Southwest in search of a better life.

The film premiered at the 28th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and was released theatrically on December 9, 1974 by Warner Bros. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $21 million. dollars with a budget of 1.8 million. At the 47th Academy Awards, Burstyn won for Best Actress, while Diane Ladd and Getchell received nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay.

Plot

The story begins in Socorro, New Mexico, where Alice Hyatt, a homemaker, lives with her husband, Donald, and their 12-year-old son Tommy. Donald's relationship with his wife seems to be in a very difficult situation for coexistence, since both argue and have differences constantly. Things change when Alice receives a phone call and is told that her husband has died in an accident. Her concern for lack of money begins to grow, and she decides to go with her son to Monterrey, California, to look for a job.

Their financial situation leads them to take lodgings in Phoenix, where Alice finds work as a singer and piano player in a seedy bar. There she meets a man, Ben, much younger than her and apparently available to her, who is attracted to her and manages to date her. Then, Alice receives an unexpected visitor. This is Rita, Ben's wife who knows that her husband has missed her work several times to go on dates with her. Ben arrives at Alice's apartment and reacts violently. He beats up her wife and threatens to break Alice's jaw. Alice makes the decision to leave the apartment and go to another city so as not to have any more problems. Alice and Tommy head to Tucson and check into a cheap motel. Later, she decides to go find a job again to support her son and to be able to take care of herself as well. When she returns, she tells her son that she got a job as a waitress in some kind of cafeteria or restaurant. Alice is not happy with her new job, but she tells Tommy that they will arrive in Monterrey very soon and, in the meantime, he can go study guitar lessons in that city.

On the first day of work, Alice meets David, who frequents the restaurant for dinner and has his first run-in with Florence, one of the waitresses. Alice begins a normal life with her son, but she notices something strange about David, who has been very kind to Tommy. David realizes that the only way to win Alice's heart is through Tommy.

Cast

• Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt, a thirty-year-old woman who worked as a singer.
• Mia Bendixsen as Alice at age eight
• Alfred Lutter like Tommy, Alice's teenage son.
• Kris Kristofferson like David, a regular restaurant dinner client.
• Billy Bush like Donald, truck driver, Alice's husband.
• Diane Ladd like Florence Jean Castleberry, restaurant waitress.
• Valerie Curtin as Vera, a shy and clumsy waitress.
• Lelia Goldoni as Bea, friend and neighbor to Alicia.
• Bradbury lane like Rita
• Vic Tayback like Mel
• Jodie Foster like Audrey, a little feminine girl with criminal tendencies.
• Harvey Keitel like Ben, a man of evil genius who joins with weapons ammunition to earn a living.
• Murray Moston like Jacobs
• Harry Northup as the bartender Joe & Jim.

Curiosities

• Alice developed from the personal situation that Scorsese lived at the time. In 1971, he had broken his marriage with Laraine Brennan, and felt the same mistake with his current partner. He himself declared: "(Alice is) a film about emotions, feelings, relationships and confused people. Something very personal in the case of Ellen (Ellen Burstyn) and mine at that time. We thought we had to translate it, show the difference and represent people who made terrible mistakes, who ruined their lives when they realized they were trying to turn back and then everything was crumbling... It was basically like a psychoanalysis for all of us. It was crazy."
• To roll the sequences of flashback At the beginning of the film, where Alice appears young in Monterey, the old Gowner Street dishes were used. It was the last film shot there, where Scorsese got one of the decorators of Citizen Kane. Only this scene cost $85 000, almost twice the budget Who's That Knocking at My Door (1969), his first film.
• This film inspired the telecomedia Alicewith the scripts of Groucho Marx's son, Arthur Marx and Robert Fisher.
• Thanks to the little role played by a young Jodie Foster, Scorsese would choose her in 1976 to play the role of Iris in Taxi Driver.
• At the time of his premiere, Alice continued the study that Scorsese had conducted on relations between men and women, initiated with Who's That Knocking at My Door (1969), continued with Boxcar Bertha (1972) and Mean Streets (1973), and that it would find its highest point in New York, New York (1977). Only one film breaks this scheme by contemplating the abyss of a lonely man: Taxi Driver (1976).

Awards

The film won an Oscar for Best Leading Actress (Ellen Burstyn) and earned two other nominations, for Best Supporting Actress (Diane Ladd) and Best Original Screenplay. It was also in the official selection of the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.

Oscar Awards

Golden Globe Awards

BAFTA Awards