Retrospective: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Patreon)

Well, it's not on par with Troy McClure's Alice Doesn't Live Anymore, but even Scorsese can't make better movies that ones we can only imagine.

If Mean Streets was Scorsese's attempt to reckon with the violence of his childhood in The Bowery, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore Scorsese breaks out of his ethnic enclave and deals with the more general plight of the American housewife. Alice belongs to a cadre of classic Seventies films that deal with the fundamental loneliness of being a housewife. Ellen Burstyn plays her second single mom in a row (she was working on The Exorcist when the seeds of Alice were planted), dealing with the sudden death of her husband, the loss of her home, and having to raise a song while homeless.

Alice spends the film trying to figure out what womanhood looks like outside of a shitty marriage. She faces challenges to her notions of how life as a woman is supposed to work, from a violent abuser (Harvey Keitel) to affable misogyny appeaser of a waitress (Diane Ladd). The film nails the nature of misogyny in the Southwest (I swear I've met half of these characters) without caving to sexism or idealizing the extremely flawed and immature Alice. A fascinating picture in the tradition of John Cassavettes, and a minor classic of Scorsese's career.