Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Friday, May 10 - Sunday, May 12, 2019

“Martin Scorsese’s ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE opens with a parody of the Hollywood dream world little girls were expected to carry around in their intellectual baggage a generation ago. The screen is awash with a fake sunset, and a sweet little thing comes strolling along home past sets that seem rescued from The Wizard of Oz. But her dreams and dialogue are decidedly not made of sugar, spice, or anything nice: This little girl is going to do things her way.

That was her defiant childhood notion, anyway. But by the time she’s thirty-five, Alice Hyatt has more or less fallen into society’s rhythms. She’s married to an incommunicative truck driver, she has a precocious twelve-year-old son, she kills time chatting with the neighbors. And then her husband is unexpectedly killed in a traffic accident and she’s left widowed and — almost worse than that — independent. After all those years of having someone there, can she cope by herself?

…There’s also the specific way her first employer backs into offering her a singing job, and the way Alice takes leave from her old neighbors, and the way her son persists in explaining a joke that could only be understood by a twelve-year-old. These are great moments in a film that gives us Alice Hyatt: female, thirty-five, undefeated.” – Roger Ebert (1974)

Screening as part of our Spring 2019 season of “Weekend Classics: Love, Mom and Dad.”

  • Country USA
  • Year 1974
  • Running Time 112 minutes
  • Director Martin Scorsese
  • Writer Robert Getchell
  • Editor Marcia Lucas
  • Cinematographer Kent L. Wakeford
  • Cast Ellen Burstyn, Mia Bendixsen, Alfred Lutter III, Billy Green Bush, Lelia Goldoni, Harvey Keitel, Valerie Curtin, Kris Kristofferson, Jodie Foster

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.