Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a 1974 American comedy-drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn and co-starring Billy Green Bush, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Lelia Goldoni, Lane Bradbury, Vic Tayback, Jodie Foster (in one of her earliest movie appearances), and Harvey Keitel.
Plot[]
After her husband dies, Alice (Ellen Burstyn) and her son, Tommy (Alfred Lutter), leave their small New Mexico town for California, where Alice hopes to make it as a singer. Money problems force them to settle in Arizona instead, where Alice takes a job as waitress in a small diner. She intends to stay in Arizona just long enough to make the money needed to head back out on the road, but her plans change when she begins to fall for a rancher named David (Kris Kristofferson).
Synopsis[]
When in Socorro, New Mexico, housewife Alice Hyatt's (Ellen Burstyn) uncaring husband Donald is killed in an accident, she decides to have a garage sale, pack what's left of her meager belongings and take her precocious son Tommy (Alfred Lutter) to Monterey, California, where she hopes to pursue the singing career she'd abandoned when she married.
Their financial situation forces them to take temporary lodgings in Phoenix, Arizona, where she finds work as a lounge singer in a seedy bar. There she meets the considerably younger and seemingly available Ben (Harvey Keitel), who uses his charm to lure her into a sexual relationship that comes to a sudden end when his wife confronts Alice. Ben mercilessly beats his wife for interfering with his extramarital affair. Fearing for their safety, Alice and Tommy quickly leave town.
Having spent most of the little money she earned on a new wardrobe, Alice is forced to delay their journey to the West Coast and accept a job as a waitress in Tucson, Arizona so she can accumulate more cash. At the local diner owned by Mel (Vic Tayback), she eventually bonds with her fellow servers—independent, no-nonsense, outspoken Flo (Diane Ladd) and quiet, timid, incompetent Vera (Valerie Curtin) and meets divorced local rancher David (Kris Kristofferson), who soon realizes the way to Alice's heart is through Tommy.
Still emotionally wounded from the difficult relationship she had with her uncommunicative husband and the frightening encounter she had with Ben, Alice is hesitant to get involved with another man so quickly. However, she finds out that David is a good influence on Tommy, who has befriended wisecracking, shoplifting, wine-guzzling Audrey (Jodie Foster), a slightly older girl forced to fend for herself while her mother makes a living as a prostitute.
Alice and David warily fall in love, but their relationship is threatened when Alice objects to his discipline of the perpetually bratty Tommy. The two reconcile, and David offers to sell his ranch and move to Monterey so Alice can try to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming another Alice Faye. But in the end Alice decides to stay in Tucson, coming to the conclusion that she can become a singer anywhere.
Cast[]
- Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt, a woman in her thirties who once worked as a singer
- Alfred Lutter as Tommy, Alice's talkative preteen son
- Kris Kristofferson as David, a regular customer of Mel's diner
- Billy Green Bush as Donald, a truck driver, Alice's husband
- Diane Ladd as Flo, a hardened, sharp-tongued waitress
- Lelia Goldoni as Bea, Alice's friend and neighbor in Socorro.
- Lane Bradbury as Rita
- Vic Tayback as Mel, a short-order cook who owns his own diner
- Jodie Foster as Audrey, a tomboyish girl with delinquent tendencies
- Harvey Keitel as Ben, a hot-tempered man who assembles gun ammunition for a living
- Valerie Curtin as Vera, a shy, high-strung waitress
- Murray Moston as Jacobs
- Harry Northup as Joe & Jim's Bartender
Director Martin Scorsese cameoed as man in the cafe. Diane Ladd's daughter, future actress Laura Dern, appears as the little girl eating ice cream in the diner.
Reception[]
Critical response[]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 88% "Fresh" rating from 33 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore finds Martin Scorsese wielding a somewhat gentler palette than usual, with generally absorbing results."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "one of the most perceptive, funny, occasionally painful portraits of an American woman I've seen" and commented, "The movie has been both attacked and defended on feminist grounds, but I think it belongs somewhere outside ideology, maybe in the area of contemporary myth and romance." Ebert put the film at #3 of his list of the best films of 1975 (even though the film came out in '74)
TV Guide rated the film three out of four stars, calling it an "effective but uneven work" with performances that "cannot conceal the storyline's shortcomings."