Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Don’t be fooled by the “romcom” label on Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Beyond romantic flings and meet-cutes, Martin Scorsese’s fourth feature film is a poignant exploration of a middle-aged woman’s journey to independence. When Alice (Burstyn) is suddenly widowed, she decides to pick up where she left off as a singer and heads to California with her son Tommy (Lutter) in tow. She pushes and pulls between her glittery ambitions and her desire for stability. “Why can’t I have it all?” she asks. Along the way, she falls in and out of love with different men, much to Tommy’s chagrin. It’s touted as a romance, but the film’s most important relationships are the ones Alice shares with her son and girlfriends (Bechdel Test: passed). Their conversations are realistic—alternately funny, loving, painful, and piercing—as the film beautifully captures the American Southwest. It’s not perfect by any means. Kris Kristofferson, who plays one of Alice’s lovers, is weirdly wooden in his acting, and the ending might be controversial in today’s standards. But it is overall a satisfying watch, one that remains timeless in its knotty depiction of motherhood, pre-helicopter parenting.

After her husband dies, Alice and her son, Tommy, leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make a new life for herself as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner.