Away from Her
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Movie Reviews of Away from Her
Movie Review: From Lovers To Strangers
Summary: 5 Stars
"Don't worry, I'm just losing my mind" she quips when he catches her absently putting a frying pan in the freezer. But it's not a joke: Fiona has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's." Dennis Harvey
Fiona, Julie Christie, is in the midst of Alzheimer's. She is having symptoms and when she becomes lost in the cold she makes the decision to enter a facility for care. Fiona and her husband, Grant, a retired professor, played by Gordon Pinsent , live on a lake in Ontario and have been married for over 40 years. Loving, fulfilled years and they seem the happy, retired couple. This movie is so well played that we enter into the mindset of both Fiona and Grant and have a glimpse of what their lives might be like. First from the person involved with Alzheimer's and then from the partner's perspective. Julie Christie, one of the most beautiful of actresses, remains as lovely and serene as ever. As Fiona she plays this part with extreme serenity and intelligence. Gordon Pinsent, her husband Grant, is a charismatic man and his part is played with subtlety and perfection. Kristen Thomson, the lead nurse at the facility is wonderful with her compassion, knowledge and insight.
At an early point in their marriage, Grant had affairs with his younger students and even though Fiona stayed there seems to be an unspoken anger within her. At times you wonder if some of her symptoms and behavior are not exaggerated by her anger. At the facility, Fiona becomes involved in the daily life of a man, Aubrey, and seems at times to have forgotten who Grant is. The issue of finding another soul to hang onto when you are going down this path of the unknown seems to me to be a human need. And, as Fiona says to Grant, "Aubrey does not confuse me". Many lovely scenes ensue as the Alzheimer's progresses and Grant visits daily and sits and watches his wife slowly slipping away. Grant does become involved with life again but in his mind Fiona comes first. The life of partners when one has Alzheimer's should be viewed by all.
"In a refreshingly direct, unassuming manner, "Away From Her" considers two great human mysteries: the persistence of love and the workings of the brain. It takes the twilight of a long, mostly happy marriage as a vantage point from which to look back at youth and forward into the waiting darkness. I can't remember the last time the movies yielded up a love story so painful, so tender and so true." A. O Scott
Highly, highly Recommended. prisrob 02-09-08
Darling
The Old Man and the Sea
Movie Review: 'But then that's life...isn't it'
Summary: 5 Stars
AWAY FROM HER is a remarkable film from Canada for many reasons: the subject matter is tough but handled with sincerity and candor, the story from a short story by Alice Munro has been beautifully adapted for the screen by young and gifted director Sarah Polley, and the cast is homogeneously excellent - topped by shining Oscar worthy performances by Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. Polley has elected to share this tale of descent into Alzheimer's Disease and it effect on all manner of people by taking a subtle fragmentary approach to revealing the story and character development and in doing so she gives a feeling of how the world slowly loses its sense as the brain bumps around in deepening chaos.
The setting is Ontario, Canada where a couple has lived in a family home for the past twenty years of their 44-year marriage. Fiona (Julie Christie) remains a lovely woman but her memory is slipping and her husband Grant (Gordon Pinsent) adjusts to her diminished ability to cope with compassion and love. Through flashbacks and little moments in the present, the encroaching effects of Alzheimer's Disease become more prominent and together the couple arrives at the decision that placement in Meadowlands, a home of Alzheimer's victims, is necessary. An obligatory separation of 30 days 'while patients settle in' is followed by Gordon's visiting Fiona, only to discover that she doesn't recognize him and has transferred her affection to a mute wheelchair-confined Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Trying to understand this change Gordon visits Aubrey's wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) and despite the devotion each has for their spouses, they seek some sense of security and rekindled meaning to life by dating. 'It's a strange world' they continue to sigh, struggling to adapt to the life into which they have been thrown.
The cast is brilliant: not only does Julie Christy deliver a carefully studied, nuanced, informed portrayal of the Fiona at odds with diminishing brain activity and Gordon Pinsent matching her with a man torn by the throes of their misfortune, but the smaller roles by Dukakis and especially by Kristen Thomson as the worldly wise and kind nurse Kristy are so well defined they astonish us. The isolation of the story is captured in the snows of Ontario by cinematographer Luc Montpellier and Composer Jonathan Goldsmith has fashioned a musical score that relies inventively and subtly on Bach. Sarah Polley may be young in experience as a director and writer, but if the brilliant AWAY FROM HER is any indication of her talent, we are in for a series of significant films. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 07
Movie Review: No. 1 on my list of Best of the Year
Summary: 5 Stars
When it comes to "Away from Her," the overused, abused adjective cannot be avoided: it is a great film.
Sarah Polley's film grips, holds, moves, thrills; you will think and talk about it, remember the story and the characters indefinitely - which could well serve as a dictionary definition of "great film." All this from a 27-year-old first-time director!
You will see advertising and hear talk about "the one with Julie Christie having Alzheimer's," but that describes "Away from Her" no better than saying "Hamlet" is about a man who cannot make up his mind. Yes, Fiona, Christie's character, is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's, but the actress - as beautiful as ever and in her greatest role here - creates a complex, full figure, with good moments and bad ones, with intelligence, warmth, carrying regrets and hurts with grace. The outstanding Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent is Grant, Fiona's loving husband for long, rich decades, albeit with their share of problems.
As the story unfolds, Grant and Fiona face the obvious, the inevitable, but for the audience, there is nothing obvious or inevitable about the way things happen. Polley's writing is Stoppardian in its complexity and brilliance - there is nothing predigested and Hollywoodish here, only life and people as infinitely complex as the human brain. Even as it deteriorates, the brain - and the film about this tragic process - retains its surprises and wonders, and to the very last scene of "Away from Her," you cannot sit back and assume you know what will happen. You don't; the film's unpredictability is one of its great assets.
Add to Polley's script (based on Alice Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain") and direction, to Christie's and Pinsent's magnificent individual and ensemble acting, a cast to treasure. Olympia Dukakis and Michael Murphy play a couple whose lives unexpectedly intertwine with Grant and Fiona's. Kristen Thomson steals whole scenes from the principals as the head nurse at the institution where Fiona is placed; warm, supportive, nurturing and altogether wonderful, the nurse has one quick exchange in which she shows another side and another attitude - and this slight "glitch" makes the character even more real and sympathetic.
"Away from Her" is not a tragedy, it's a drama, which moves and uplifts; it provides catharsis. It includes charming and funny moments, but even the humor has depth. In one scene, as she is watching TV news from Iraq, Alzheimer's patient Fiona exclaims: "How could they forget Vietnam?!"
Movie Review: Hey! Academy! What About Pinsent?
Summary: 5 Stars
It's exceptionally nice to see current world crisis' make an impact on film. Alzheimer's is a worldwide problem that cost billions of dollars in healthcare costs, rips at the fabric of families, and challenges us as a people to come up with ways of handling this mind-killer. And the best way to focus on this problem is to encapsulate it via one couple and show the havoc this disease wreaks. Thus we get AWAY FROM HER, actress Sarah Polley's first time in the director's chair. If it's any indication as to Mrs. Polley's future behind the camera, I'd say we're in for some great cinema from her.
I enjoyed this film for a couple of reasons. First is what I mentioned above about showing world issues. Second is the simplicity of the filming. There are no camera tricks, no lingering shots on falling leaves to indicate the end of one's life, and no easing into how difficult it is to let go of the mind (and eventually their body) of someone you've loved all your life. It's hard, cold and ultimately forces one to deal with situations they never thought possible. And finally I have to mention the acting.
Julie Christie is getting plenty of awards buzz because of her portrayal as Fiona Anderson, an aging woman who seems too young to be getting Alzheimer's. Although I enjoyed her acting immensely, it paled in comparison to Gordon Pinsent's awesome portrayal as Grant, her husband and man she leaves behind.
Pinsent played the perfect role as the equally lost husband, forced to put his wife in an institution designed for Alzheimer's patients and watch her slowly decay and drift from him. Pinsent goes through all of the emotions, from denial, anger and finally acceptance.
Olympia Dukakis plays Marian, a woman who's husband lives in the same institution as Fiona. As Fiona and Marian's husband become too close for comfort for both Grant and Marian, the two are forced together in hopes of connecting again with someone their own age who are experiencing the same horrific life-ending events of their spouses. Dukakis plays her role well and one scene in particular between her and Pinsent will probably make viewers both laugh and cry in the same moment.
My only complaint with Away From Her is that all of the major award groups (Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG, etc.) neglected to nominate Pinsent, while Julie Christie has been showered with them. It doesn't seem fair. The one's left behind -- after Alzheimer's -- pack the most emotional wallop when translating such devastation to film. And Pinsent pulled it off perfectly.
Movie Review: Deeply Moving, Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent are mesmerizing!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Away from Her is directed by acclaimed Canadian actress Sarah Polley known for dramatic and memorable roles in movies include The Sweet Hearafter, The Secret Life of Words, and My Life Without Me. It's clearly convincing to see Polley's first feature film as a director to be a heavy duty drama/tearjerker. This film will have a huge following of female audiences over 40, I was like one of 10% male audiences in the full house seating. If you enjoy movies like "Iris" which deals with very similar issues of mental health, love, and relationship crisis, then you will easily be taken by this movie as well as the mesmerizing and deeply moving performances from Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.
The story takes place in a small town in Northern Ontario, and it evolves around the relationship of a seemingly loving couple Fiona and Grant played by Christie and Pinsent. They have no children and have been happily married for more than forty years. At one point, we find out that that Grant had cheated on Fiona with a university student of his, and in order to make amends to her, they moved away to another town. Fiona gradually becomes forgetful, and was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. She She was welling to submit herself to special care centre for treatment, and it was the first time that Grant had to be away from her for at least the first month while she's there. He was not prepared to see that gradually her condition became so severe that she no longer identified him and she started to become involved with another patient. The other patient's wife Marian is played Olympia Dukakis, who is equally frustrated by her husband's condition and the financial burden she has to face on her own. Grant and Marian find solace in each other, but Grant is so devastated and continued visit Fiona in hope that she will remember him.....
Julie Christie is simply mesmerizing in her meticulous body language and facial expressions. She doesn't have as much dialogues as Pinsent, but her silent and confused scenes were so powerful. I truly see Christie and Pinsent getting all kinds of acting awards for their powerful performances. I also enjoyed Olympia Dukakis' performance, even though her screentime is relatively brief. Away From Her could easily be one of the best Canadian films in recent years.