Taglines: Alice is 35. Her son is 12. Together they’re running away from home.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore movie storyline. Despite admitting that she was scared of him in her never-ending quest to please him, thirty-five year old housewife and mother Alice Hyatt is devastated when her husband Donald is killed in an on the job traffic accident. With few job skills except that as a singer, Alice, along with her precocious eleven year old son Tommy, decides to move from their current home in Socorro, New Mexico to her home town of Monterrey, California, the only place she has ever felt happy.
She plans on getting singing gigs along the way to earn money to get back to Monterrey by the end of the summer and the start of Tommy’s school year. Alice’s quest for a job at each stop leaves Tommy often to fend for himself, which may make Tommy even more precocious. His behavior is fostered by Alice, as their relationship is often more as trouble-making friends than mother and son.
Alice’s plans often do not end up as she envisions, especially as she is forced to take a waitressing job at Mel and Ruby’s Diner in Tucson, Arizona, which entails working with a disparate group, including Mel, the establishment’s gruff owner/short order cook, and her fellow waitresses, the wisecracking, foul mouthed Flo, and the naive and shy Vera. Alice also falls into old habits, namely relying on men to make her feel fulfilled, specifically the much younger Ben, and farmer David. Those relationships may also provide her with a better perspective on her life and her bad choice of Donald as a husband.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is a 1974 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her preteen son across the Southwestern United States in search of a better life. Kris Kristofferson, Billy “Green” Bush, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Lelia Goldoni, Vic Tayback, Jodie Foster, Alfred Lutter and Harvey Keitel are featured in supporting roles. It was one of Foster’s earliest notable film appearances before her breakthrough with Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976).
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore premiered at the 27th 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 on a $1.8 million budget. At the 47th Academy Awards, Burstyn won Best Actress, while Ladd and Getchell received nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay.
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Mia Bendixsen, Alfred Lutter, Billy Green Bush, Lelia Goldoni, Harry Northup, Marty Brinton, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Lane Bradbury
Screenplay by: Robert Getchell
Production Design by: Toby Carr Rafelson
Cinematography by: Kent L. Wakeford
Film Editing by: Marcia Lucas
Art Direction by: Edward Aiona, John Sexton
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: December 9, 1974
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