“Too many people don't live their dreams because they are busy living their fears.”
Reading Les Brown's phrase shakes the January summer drowsiness like a slap in the face.
And relive the memory of “Alice”, one of those little gems that Woody Allen knew how to illuminate.
Mrs. Tate, after whom the film is named, has it all.
That is to say, she has everything that, for certain imaginations, represents happiness: a husband as handsome as he is rich, two splendid children, a luxurious apartment in the best of Manhattan, endless days of shopping with bags carried by her driver.
A comfortable life and, one might say, carefree.
Until a stubborn back pain puts her in the hands of an acupuncturist.
In addition to undergoing the needles, Alice begins to talk.
And so, little by little, listening to herself, in those long talks with Dr. Yang, she begins to unravel the plot of a life that, in addition to being perfect only on the surface, is revealed to be quite far from the one she would have really chosen.
Comfort, social conventions, good manners and perhaps unconfessed fears became the grave under which the real Alice lay.
From that revelation, nothing will be the same.
“When I came here,” he will tell Yang, “I had a secure life.
Everything was in its place.
Now, however, I feel vertigo..."
The doctor nods, but says: “In that orderly life, Mrs. Tate was not happy.
I think she is much better now, that she can decide what she wants to be.
The thing is that freedom is scary..."
“What would you do if you were not afraid?” she often challenges her interlocutors, the CEO of a global company.
And you, what would you do?