The Most Disturbing Scene ( testing the audience's moral limits)

In fact, the Alice who is so diminished at the end DOES take a position about whether or not she's ready to leave. When she and her husband are at Pinkberry having their yogurt, he asks her, very gently, if she's ready to leave, and she answers very firmly, "I'm not done yet." She, of course, is talking about her blueberry yogurt: he's talking about leaving NY for Minnesota, but we, the audience, understand that she's really talking about the pills. She's not ready to go yet: she's not done yet. Even if the simple pleasure of enjoying the blueberries is all that's left, she wants it.

I agree that's what it looked like when she made the video for her future self, but what it was really an attempt to exert some control over her future situation. To be able to end things on her own terms. What she couldn't anticipate is that when the time came to follow the instructions, she would probably not be able to. That to me is the real tragedy here. (Not, btw, that she couldn't kill herself. No matter whether you think that's right or wrong, it's still tragic.) The great tragedy is that someone so smart, so full of memories is robbed of everything she held dear and even of her own dignity. What a horrible thing to happen to anyone.

There is one aspect of this scene that seems to have been overlooked by the posters here, and that is the issue of control. The Alice we first meet in the story thinks she knows best. She tried more than once to get Lydia to go to college as a back-up plan. Lydia wanted to live her life as she saw fit, saying, "I'm happy."

In a sense, the Alice that makes the video is playing Mother to the later Alice, telling her what to do. But the earlier Alice doesn't know everything, for instance, she doesn't consider what might happen if her less able self stumbles across the video accidentally. Earlier Alice is thinking about her current version of happiness, and imposing it on later Alice, only assuming, not actually knowing where later Alice will be emotionally.

Alice's two other children have followed paths more similar to Alice and John. They are too busy to care for her. John makes the more practical choice of taking the new job, so he can't care for her, either. Lydia is the one who comes through for Alice when Alice is no longer able to be in charge of her life, but still seems to know about love, evidenced by her response to Lydia regarding the passage she was reading to Alice.

There's a message here about control versus acceptance, and the often opposing values of love and caring versus material achievement. Ironically, early Alice could have learned something from later Alice and her no-back-up-plan daughter, Lydia.

I viewed that scene as the enactment of a living will - there was no moral dilemma.

As a scientist, a professor myself, I totally agree with Alice's choice. I would do exactly the same thing. I am nothing without my mind. After watching this movie, I am seriously considering putting this in my will: If my mind is gone, I ask my family to put me to sleep, exercise my right-to-death, if it is legal by then.

This moral dilemma isn't really a dilemma at all anymore, but forced upon us by ancient authorities, peers and religion as a way to exercise control one's values. As freedom of speech should exist, this should be treaten the same way. We are not dumb peasants anymore, as information is available everywhere for everyone. Sure, we are still taught this way, but as a basic value we should all have self determination. I still cant believe people take the right to control other people's lives.

OT, to argue that one person isnt the same person in the same body is beyond imagination. Ridiculous thought that there is a border in which someone can or cannot decide about their own existance. In this movie there was not even such a situation, because Alice made a will, whether it is considered legal should not even be a question.

I was sincerely sad Alice could not exercise her will, as recorded in her own made video. People thinking otherwise are objecting to the whole principle of a will.

If you think that past Alice and future Alice are different people because memories equals continuity of self, then it still isn't murder because Alice has no memories, and therefore according to your logic, she has no self. It's more like switching off the life support system from the past. And it is entirely her choice because it's her body and the remnants of her mind and her history and her family. Future Alzheimers Alice is not a different person, she is just less of the person she was. Alice still has total rights over herself, past, present and future. Don't try and be too pretentious and philosophical for your own good.

humans are embedded with a deep fear of dying. otherwise we would jump off a cliff after the first bad headache and the experiment would end. also many are burdened with suicide being a mortal sin. so you have heredity and environment working against suicide. alice either did not have the courage to kill herself and was hoping vegetable alice could do it or she gambled that she could live her last coherent moment and still pull it off. either way she lost, which maybe a lesson to others in her predicament. as nursing homes become more and more populated and costly, future generations will have to deal with the suicide issue.