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MovieMail's Review
Julie Christie delivers the best performance of her career in this moving, unfairly neglected film that deserves a much larger audience. She stars as Fiona, a beautiful woman suffering the early stages of dementia. The film gradually hints at her condition, showing her briefly putting a frying pan in the fridge, or forgetting why she has stood up at a dinner party. As her illness “progresses”, she agrees to stay in a geriatric home, against the wishes of her loving husband (Gordon Pinsent), who is fearful she will forget him.
Incredibly, given its maturity and class, this film was made by Sarah Polley, a 28-year-old Canadian actress (My Life Without Me), making her directorial debut. She cleverly plays with the idea of forgetfulness throughout Away from Her; images are repeated throughout the film, and when watching news footage of US troops in Iraq Fiona suddenly murmurs “how could they forget Vietnam?” Similarly, the non-linear narrative disorientates the viewer, leading to a sense of confusion. Far, far more than a mere disease-of-the-week melodrama, this superb work is a mature mediation on love, sacrifice and redemption.
Canadian actress Sarah Polley makes an impressive directorial debut with Away From Her, a film adapted from the Alice Munro story 'The Bear Came Over The Mountain'.
The plot concerns the way in which the 50-year marriage of Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie) deteriorates with the progression of Fiona’s Alzheimer’s disease.
Rich scenery, intimate cinematography, and familiar songs including Neil Young’s 'Helpless' create a private world of two people enviably in love. Fiona and Grant have carved out a piece of the world for themselves, and have lived together happily in their later years until Fiona’s memory started to wane.
The harmony in their lives is lost when Fiona decides she’s reached the point of no return and enters a retirement home in order to take the burden off Grant, though he can think of nothing worse than being away from her.
After dropping Fiona off, Grant is forced to not visit for 30 days, which, as he fears, ends up feeling much longer in the mind of a person who is losing her memory.
Away From Her features stunning performances from its leads as well as from Michael Murphy as Aubrey (a patient Fiona forms a close bond with), Olympia Dukakis as Aubrey’s wife, and Kristen Thomson as a nurse at the facility.
Instead of treating old age as the winding down of life, this film portrays it as a potentially rich, enjoyable period. Grant and Fiona never yearn for the days of their youth, but rather for the later years when their intimacy had reached a higher peak.
While so many films portray older characters in a one-dimensional way, Polley’s film portrays its characters as multifaceted people filled with wisdom and true beauty, thanks to their age and not in spite of it.
