Away from Her
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Movie Reviews of Away from Her
Movie Review: Astounding Filmmaking Debut for Polley Spotlights a Luminous Christie in a Moving Study of Loss
Summary: 5 Stars
At 28, Canadian actress Sarah Polley already has a prodigious career exploring characters with searing intelligence and psychological depth (Guinevere, The Sweet Hereafter). With the addition of director and writer to her resume, she offers a film most unexpected from someone so young since it reflects a keen perspective that recognizes the subtle changes in relationships that have endured for decades. The 2007 film is a compelling character-driven study of people well past sixty, all dealing with loss in various forms. The chief focus is on Grant, a retired English professor, and his wife Fiona, a handsome, childless couple married for 44 years and living an idyllic life in her parents' comfortable country home in rural Ontario. Suffering from increasing memory lapses, Fiona is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and recognizes the need to enter an assisted living facility, Meadowlake.
However, instead of focusing solely on the erosion of Fiona's memory, the unsentimental film looks at Grant's hard-pressed response to her debilitating condition, which is made all the more heartbreaking by Meadowlake's strict policy of not allowing him to visit Fiona during the first thirty days of her stay. Moreover, Fiona's memory appears to deteriorate in a most unpredictable manner as long dormant feelings of anger and resentment come to the surface over Grant's past indiscretions with his female students. This added emotional complexity makes it even more difficult for Grant to accept how Fiona, now completely robbed of her memories, has now bonded with Aubrey, a wheelchair-bound stroke victim whose wife Marian routinely leaves him there during the day. Another unexpected bonding occurs between Grant and Marian, who find themselves in similarly isolated situations.
Casting the luminous Julie Christie, still achingly beautiful at 65, as Fiona is Polley's masterstroke here. Christie - whose own illustrious career goes back to vivid images of her beauty and conviction in Darling, Far from the Madding Crowd, and most memorably, as the elusive Lara in Doctor Zhivago - gives so much unobtrusive dimension to her moving performance that I didn't realize how much I've missed seeing the full bloom of her talent work onscreen. It is also a tribute to the delicacy of her work that she does not overshadow veteran Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, who plays the mostly taciturn Grant with a subtle force that beckons his determined resistance to allow his wife to go gentle into that good night. Two other performances are compelling - Olympia Dukakis, who brings her trademark no-nonsense manner to Marian and then reveals her vulnerability in halting measure, and Kristen Thomson, who makes the smiling nurse Kristy a hard-earned voice of reason with an unexpected edge.
Michael Murphy has little to do as Aubrey except react mutely to the drama around him, and Wendy Crewson presents that familiar arm's-length crispness to Meadowlake's chief administrator. Fully capturing the snowy beauty of the area, especially in the cross-country skiing sequences, Luc Montpellier's cinematography is especially noteworthy here. Polley takes no easy avenues in telling the story she has adapted with precision from Alice Munro's powerfully affecting short story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (from her excellent short story compilation, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage). Amazingly avoiding any confusion, she intriguingly adjusts the narrative by having characters go back and forth in time by hinging on the key turning points in the plot. As a whole, the film represents a truly masterful debut.
The 2007 DVD features a commentary track from Christie. With no one else with whom to converse, especially a conspicuously absent Polley, she sounds engaged in the first half-hour and then drifts in and out thereafter. She can be quite illuminating, but most of her comments are rather general in nature. It would have been nice if Polley could have probed further into some of the actress' observations. Polley, however, is present, on the commentary of five minor deleted scenes. There is also a celebrity-filled PSA for for the Alzheimer's Association.
Movie Review: She was taken away from him, but he would never let her go; a truly moving and magical film...
Summary: 5 Stars
`Away from Her' is one of those movies that really got inside of me, inside my soul and made me look at my life now and in the future and contemplate the man I would one day become. It's true testament of a wonderful and utterly breathtaking film when one is that deeply moved by it, not just to tears or emotions but to actions. `Away from Her' is a film that will make you strive to be a better person, husband, wife, father, mother, child, whatever the case may be, because the deep-seated moral of this film is one that begs to be dissected and analyzed for the betterment of the viewer.
There's a moment within the film where Gordon Pinsent (who so deserves an Oscar for this performance) is sitting on a bench watching the woman that used to be his wife conversing with a man she feels she now loves and that single scene is so emotionally overwhelming I felt I was going to lose it. It was in that scene though that I finally realized what this movie was all about, and as I sat there, my gaze shifting from the screen to my wife who was nursing our child I felt the tears rolling down my cheek as I wondered if I would be that strong if that time ever came.
The film follows an elderly couple, Grant and Fiona, who have had a wonderful life together until Fiona's Alzheimer's begins to make their life all the more difficult. Against his wishes Grant eventually gives into Fiona's persistence and admits her into a home for those suffering for this condition. Regulations don't allow him to visit Fiona for thirty days, which proves to be just enough time for her to forget him entirely and form a romantic bond with another patient Aubrey. Faithfully Grant visits his wife every day, trying his hardest to make her remember their love but it seems almost hopeless.
What makes this movie so incredibly moving are the powerful performances by the entire cast, but especially those of Pinsent and Mrs. Julie Christie (who will most likely get her Oscar for this). Pinsent and Christie both avail themselves to the central core of their characters, playing them as real people and not overly emotional, dramatized or clichéd variations of what Hollywood would like them to be. With extreme delicacy and subtlety they embody Grant and Fiona and bring them to life before our eyes. Another standout here is Olympia Dukakis who brilliantly compliments Gordon's performance. Dukakis plays Marion, the wife of Fiona's new love interest Aubrey. With their spouses falling into their own relationship Grant and Marion find themselves relying on each other for support and stability. Michael Murphy also delivers a solid if wordlessly convincing performance as Aubrey, but he's easily overshadowed by his costars.
Sarah Polley, a young actress who never seemed to get the attention she deserved, stakes her claim to fame with this impressive directorial debut. Her style is reminiscent of another favorite of mine Todd Field (who is also an actor turned director) in his directorial debut `In the Bedroom'. While arguably Todd's masterpiece is a little more refined and polished a film and in effect I believe is a better film, Polley's debut can also be considered a masterpiece of sorts. In fact, I'm tempted to say that `Away from Her' is the finest film I've seen so far this year. Pinsent and Christie should both be up for Oscars come the years end, although sadly I feel that Pinsent has less than a fair shot.
`Away from Her' is a film I believe everyone should see for it is a film that reaches the soul and can move any and everyone. There is rarely a movie this powerful, this magnificent that it `deserves' to be seen. If only I could get across the emotions this film brought out in me, but I fear that I could never do them justice. I guess the best I can do is urge you to see this movie and experience those emotions for yourself for that is the only way you could truly understand.
Movie Review: Can love endure when memory fails? Can joy be found in the midst of sorrow?
Summary: 5 Stars
The film opens with a closeup of a small piece of paper, held in an old hand...the camera pans up, and we see that the old hand belongs to the old face of an old man, Grant (Gordon Pinsent) who is driving in a wintry landscape. Soon the scene cuts to Fiona (Julie Christie) skiing across a similar snowy background, and somewhere within these first two scenes, the first minute or so of film, I was sure that this film was going to be great.
Fiona and Grant have been married for 44 years; it seems to be a happy marriage though there are signs right from the opening of the film that a serious problem has arisen: Fiona is starting to lose her memory. Alzheimers is suspected, but unspoken in the first several scenes. We see Fiona and Grant skiing, cooking, talking together; we see them with another couple; we see the lines of tragedy beginning to show on Grant's face much more starkly than on Fiona's. She is frustrated, but somehow less frustrated than Grant, who seems desperate.
We learn that Grant has looked into an expensive but nonetheless artificial nursing home, Meadowlake; soon the narrative starts to fracture a little...we see later scenes, as Grant is conversing with a woman whose husband seems to figure into Fiona's story, and we get flashbacks of the recent past and the far past, images of the couple when young and beautiful. Problems in the marriage are now visible; Grant had apparently cheated on Fiona when a young professor...now Fiona is in the nursing home, and doesn't seem to know Grant, but has become very friendly with another patient, Aubrey, whose wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) it is that Grant is talking with, eventually pleading with, in her home at a later point in time. Grant wants Marian's husband to return to Meadowlake, despite the relationship that was developing with Fiona; why he wants to do this is one of the many deep, not entirely fathomable decisions we see made by these damaged people, as their lives are changing and perhaps ending.
I don't want to divulge more here; not that any of the revelations or developments are shocking, or even surprising, but because they are not - because they have a reality to them that is all too rare in family dramas like this one. There are no easy answers here, there is no promise of a happy ending nor is there the release of tragedy - at least, not in any obvious theatrical way. The performances are uniformly terrific; Julie Christie (Fiona) is rightfully getting a lot of praise for the way she can simultaneously show vivacity and joy, and the sorrow at losing herself - but to me Gordon Pinsent's performance as Grant is if anything even more memorable, he is the sorrowful center, he understands how his world is crumbling even when Fiona does not, and in his enormously expressive face are all the years of joy, discovery, guilt and anguish.
Sarah Polley's direction at first seems a bit mannered, a bit Euro-artsy, with several static shots of Fiona and Grant talking, reading, looking at each other, and quite a few cutaway establishing shots that don't at first have obvious meaning, but as the story takes on a sad inevitability the feel of the film becomes warmer and more open. It's an amazingly assured and mature debut and probably the very best compliment I can make is that I find it difficult to compare it to anything. Bits and pieces: something of the tone of her mentor (and exec producer) Atom Egoyan's THE SWEET HEREAFTER; something like the way that John Cassavetes could draw richness out of characters that we were seeing late in life and whose backgrounds we don't really know; something of the respect for and sorrow at the problems of aging in Yasujiro Ozu. Mighty praise. Entirely deserved, for one of the very greatest of Canadian films.
Movie Review: Hands down, in my top 10 films for 2007
Summary: 5 Stars
There is little likelihood that more than 9 movies will be as well made, or as moving a film experience in 2007 than "Away From Her". Thus, it already makes my top 10. Do whatever you have to do to find it and see it.
It is perhaps easier with short stories, and almost a virtual certainty if you retain the novelist as screenwriter. With the short story format, not chosen by many any more, going to the screen means the author can build on the story, feature nuances from the novel as scenes on the film, build character. No ripping apart and leaving on the film floor, you get to add to your own work.
Those are the choices made by first time Director Sarah Polley in her film from 2006 (released in the US in 2007) - "Away from Her" . Polley is a fine Canadian film actress noted for her independent choices (and political agenda) who had just finished filming "No Such Thing" with the sublime Julie Christie in a character role, in 2001. Polley was returning to North America from a Iceland, where the film was made, when she read "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" from one of Alice Munro's collections of short stories, 2001's "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories". She embarked on a path to make this film, doggedly determined to feature Christie in the lead role. And, she succeeded in a way that she must be immensely proud of.
This particular story of the impact of Alzheimer's on a family has always struck a chord with me. Munro is truly one of our great contemporary writers, and although I didn't favor this collection (my favorite Munro collections are "Runaway" and "Dance of the Happy Shades"), when I watched the film "The Notebook", a tale of coping with Alzheimer's in a marriage, I returned to this subliminal story and fell in love with it all over again. I didn't know about Polley's project to bring it to the screen until I read some scraps of a movie reviewer's piece last year, relishing the thought of Julie Christie returning to a leading actress role.
In "Away From Her", a couple (Christie as Fiona and Gordon Pinsent, for over 70 years a fine Canadian talent) confront the emotional as well as physical ravages of Alzheimer's, as they must part in order for her to obtain care in a nursing home. Filmed beautifully, Polley never lets the movie drag, as sad movies with determined endings often do. Polley evokes the strangeness of the situation in the facial expressions of the lovely Fiona. There is an invisible force of the disease present in almost every scene, in her manner, her face, her actions.
If the buzz surrounding "Away from Her" strengthens, if it moves from art houses to the big screen, as it did in my city, if American film-goers continue to try to find the best, not just the biggest films at their 20+ plexes, well "Away from Her" may result in a new career for Munro on the screen, an ability for Polley to command projects as a director and awards for Julie Christie's amazing performance. Indeed, the ensemble is truly all worth note.
Not to be outdone, and with award possibilities all around, the finest individual performance, it can be argued, is Gordon Pinsent's. He is remarkable as Grant, a role that is perfect for his skills. Devastated, heart broken, and still a hero, Pinsent is worth his weight in gold.
Do see it!
Movie Review: One of my "top 10" for 2007!
Summary: 5 Stars
There is little likelihood that more than 9 movies will be as well made, or as moving a film experience in 2007 than "Away From Her". Thus, it already makes my top 10. Do whatever you have to do to find it and see it.
It is perhaps easier with short stories, and almost a virtual certainty if you retain the novelist as screenwriter. With the short story format, not chosen by many any more, going to the screen means the author can build on the story, feature nuances from the novel as scenes on the film, build character. No ripping apart and leaving on the film floor, you get to add to your own work.
Those are the choices made by first time Director Sarah Polley in her film from 2006 (released in the US in 2007) - "Away from Her" . Polley is a fine Canadian film actress noted for her independent choices (and political agenda) who had just finished filming "No Such Thing" with the sublime Julie Christie in a character role, in 2001. Polley was returning to North America from a Iceland, where the film was made, when she read "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" from one of Alice Munro's collections of short stories, 2001's "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories". She embarked on a path to make this film, doggedly determined to feature Christie in the lead role. And, she succeeded in a way that she must be immensely proud of.
This particular story of the impact of Alzheimer's on a family has always struck a chord with me. Munro is truly one of our great contemporary writers, and although I didn't favor this collection (my favorite Munro collections are "Runaway" and "Dance of the Happy Shades"), when I watched the film "The Notebook", a tale of coping with Alzheimer's in a marriage, I returned to this subliminal story and fell in love with it all over again. I didn't know about Polley's project to bring it to the screen until I read some scraps of a movie reviewer's piece last year, relishing the thought of Julie Christie returning to a leading actress role.
In "Away From Her", a couple (Christie as Fiona and Gordon Pinsent, for over 70 years a fine Canadian talent) confront the emotional as well as physical ravages of Alzheimer's, as they must part in order for her to obtain care in a nursing home. Filmed beautifully, Polley never lets the movie drag, as sad movies with determined endings often do. Polley evokes the strangeness of the situation in the facial expressions of the lovely Fiona. There is an invisible force of the disease present in almost every scene, in her manner, her face, her actions.
If the buzz surrounding "Away from Her" strengthens, if it moves from art houses to the big screen, as it did in my city, if American film-goers continue to try to find the best, not just the biggest films at their 20+ plexes, well "Away from Her" may result in a new career for Munro on the screen, an ability for Polley to command projects as a director and awards for Julie Christie's amazing performance. Indeed, the ensemble is truly all worth note.
Not to be outdone, and with award possibilities all around, the finest individual performance, it can be argued, is Gordon Pinsent's. He is remarkable as Grant, a role that is perfect for his skills. Devastated, heart broken, and still a hero, Pinsent is worth his weight in gold.