Julianne Moore's Academy Award winning performance gives the film it's center, portraying a woman slowly losing the very faculties that define her identity. Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the story resists sentimentality, opting instead for a clear-eyed depiction of decline. The supporting cast, including Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart, remains present but deliberately secondary. The film's impact lies in it's intimacy, in how quietly it approaches something profoundly unsettling.