Michael J. Fox: The actor opens up about his illness in a documentary not allowed on AppleTV +

For more than thirty years, he has been fighting a terrible disease with dignity and courage. The superstar of the 80s, whose fate was turned upside down due to the onset of Parkinson’s syndrome, Michael J. Fox marks his return to the spotlight this week with the AppleTV + documentary Still: life of Michael J. Fox.

This event film, which was preceded by a triumphant reception at Sundance, traces the actor’s life and career, from his high school years, marked by his petty bullying, to his early years in the gallery in Hollywood, to his return to casting to the future. , whose success opened the door to international popularity.

While almost everyone knows that Michael Fox replaced Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly (whose scenes were shot entirely), not many people know that the Canadian actor had to shoot the film mostly at night to avoid the impact. The production of the sitcom Sacrée famille, in which he then played the main role.

Cracked in full glory

This hellish rhythm may have been the cause of early diagnosis of the disease. When Michael J. became a Hollywood star in the late 1980s. Fox drank on set and at parties, a hellish pace that prevented him from fully enjoying his family life, founded with his wife Tracy Pollan, whom he met on the set of Sacred Family.

Their first meeting did not go well, however, a tasteless joke about the actor’s breath almost killed their romance. Michael J. Fox, who now admits the folly he’s been exposed to, can still only be content with still having the woman of his life and their four children by his side.

In Still: The Life of Michael J. Fox, illness is shown to us unfiltered. The film is difficult to watch at times, while we occasionally witness moving passages where an actor falls to the ground after being approached by a fan in the street, or when he details the fractures to his head caused by his many falls.

The documentary by Davis Guggenheim (Oscar winner for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, co-directed with Al Gore) consists of interviews with Michael J. Fox, as well as family sequences, archive footage and some filmed passages. By depicting episodes from his past that he evokes.

Courage that commands respect and admiration

Halfway between documentary and biographical fiction, Still: The Life of Michael J. Fox carries a message of hope. There is indeed much to remember from the actor’s courageous battle against this degenerative and incurable disease.

Especially when the latter is asked by the director why he didn’t complain about suffering during their interviews. His response – that he constantly feels pain in his body – and the resilience he shows, even when his illness forces him to the most basic moments of his daily life, then conveys the hellish life that Michael J. Fox. thirty years.

There is no doubt that this movie will stir up a lot of emotions among Michael J Fox fans. But you don’t have to be a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy to appreciate this poignant and moving documentary whose universal message can be applied to many situations faced by millions of people around the world every day. The same disease or other syndromes.

So the rave reviews when it premiered at Sundance were well-founded. At the end of this film there is a note of optimism and a conclusion that almost makes us think that it is in his personal life that Michael J. Fox the most beautiful role of his career. Despite the disease, thirty years after the diagnosis, the latter finally “again” Michael J. Fox.

The documentary Still: The Life of Michael J. Fox can be seen on AppleTV+ and the myCANAL platform.