From the first shots of “Alice” I want to ask the question: it would seem, what is Hopkins? Yes, the name of the famous actor and mastodon of acting adorns the list of members of the crew of this amateur drama. The fact is that Alice is also the directorial debut of Stella Arroyave, who changed her name to Hopkins after marriage. Yes, Stella made a full-fledged film, and her husband decided to support her, thereby demonstrating marital support and lack of common sense.
Hopkins, who Anthony plays only a secondary role. The main character is represented by Lisa Pepper: she played in the little-known film “Whirlwind”, directed by Anthony Hopkins himself. In the story, the character Pepper (the same Alice) is married to a rich lawyer and from time to time she has fits of rage. The first scenes are quite stylish: everything is shot through a black and white filter, except for some red things (roses and a bicycle), but this imitation of “Schindler’s List” is rather pigeon. The emotionally unstable state of Alice makes you turn to a psychiatrist (Dr. Lecter, i.e. Dr. Lewis). After a certain incident, Alice’s life changes forever.
In the script, it is intentionally vague what is real and what is happening only in Alice’s head. This quite general effect should add ambiguity to the narrative, but in practice it is disappointing. Viewers distance themselves from the characters, though it is doubtful they would have been more convincing in traditional narrative.
The dialogue is tense and pompous: it is unclear whether Alice is trying to mimic theatrical production, or under the soap opera. Often the conversations of the characters are simply meaningless, and the acting is not impressive.
The drama was a failure: “Alice” is a project of the level of a student film. Stella Hopkins is still mastering the ability to write scripts and direct, so this naive charm goes to the detriment of the tape. Yes, probably, “Alice” is too naive in approaches to heavy drama, which ultimately results in an illiterate and unnecessarily gloomy film with pretentious stylistic techniques.
3 out of 10