Away from Her
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Movie Reviews of Away from Her
Movie Review: One Of My Favorites!
Summary: 5 Stars
I just couldn't take my eyes of the television screen while watching this movie! It was ever so touching and will always be one of my all time favorite movies.Movie Review: Fantastic
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought this film was great and very well done and Julie Christie certainly deserves the Best Actress Oscar, I would reccommend this film to anyone.Movie Review: Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent in a touching story about Alzheimers
Summary: 4 Stars
I do not remember if the word "Alzheimers" is even mentioned in "Away from Her," although its utterance is not necessary to understand what is happening with Fiona (Julie Christie). When she put the frying pan in the freezer, where it is dutifully retrieved by her husband, Grant (Gordon Pinsent), we know the situation, even without seeing the PSA for fighting the dastardly diseases that plays at the start of this DVD. Fiona has taken to wandering away, unable to find her way back home, and Grant cannot watch her every minute. Since that is the sort of attention she needs as the disease progresses (captured in a painful moment at a dinner party where Fiona struggles to remember what is in the bottle she holds in her hand), Grant must find a home in which to place his wife of nearly 50 years. He chooses Meadowlake.
When Grant brings Fiona to Meadowlake the first of two flaws that affect my response to "Away from Her" moves the story forward. Meadowlake has a policy that new residents cannot have neither visitors nor phone calls during the first 30-days of their stay. Now, I fully understand why such a policy makes sense if you are dealing with somebody sent to prison or checking into a rehab clinic, but at a home for the elderly that pays attention to people suffering from Alzheimer's? It would be hard to come up with something crueler. Your mind is starting to betray you and you move away from the home you have known for decades into a strange new place, and you cannot see your family and friends? No wonder when Grant arrives a month later his beloved wife thinks that he is just a new resident of the home.
This "policy" is ultimately a plot contrivance to arrive at just this situation, with the added insult to injury that Fiona has apparently transferred her affections to Aubrey (Michael Murphy), another one of the residents at Meadowlake. Aubrey is mute and has trouble getting around, but Fiona is constantly attentive to his every need. Clearly taking care of him makes her happy, but we cannot help but see the irony that Aubrey no more acknowledges Fiona that she acknowledges Grant on what are becoming daily visits. For Grant the situation is unacceptable, but with Fiona's condition there does not seem to be anything that he can do about it, and that is what serves as the film's ultimate conflict.
This 2006 Canadian film is based on Alice Munro's short story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." It is faithfully adapted to the screen by Sarah Polley in the actress' first feature film as director. Polley has assembled a solid cast to tell this tale. Christie is still radiant, and any attempt to make her look haggard can never fully succeed once you see her eyes. Pinsent brings a sense of restraint to both his pain and his resolve in dealing with this cruel twist of fate that life has dealt him (one of my favorite scenes takes place between Grant and a teenager forced to come visit somebody at the home by her family). In contrast, Olympia Dukakis as Marian brings a harsh dose of reality to both Grant and the story. Despite the stupid policy that creates the film's tragic situation, Meadowlake is a fine place for Fiona to be, personified by Kristy (Kristen Thomson), one of those angels that you pray would be taking care of your loved one.
The performances perfectly match the delicate situation, but for me there is a second flaw in this film in what happens between Grant and Marian. That is because it takes away some of the grace from the film's moving final scene and changes Grant's motivation from what I would want it to be into something much less noble. At one point I was thinking that it would be better if Marian did not have the specific relationship she has to another character in this story, but without that reason Grant would never have cause to seek her out (certainly he would not meet her by happenstance). Even with these flaws this is a touching film, so clearly these are not fatal flaws, but they still prevent me from rounding up on "Away from Her," even with the stellar performances by the principles.
Movie Review: Don't Turn 'Away' From This
Summary: 4 Stars
The Academy Award nominations are a long way off, but that has not hindered the vast amount of buzz surrounding Sarah Polley's "Away From Her," her directorial debut. Based on a short story by renowned Canadian writer Alice Munro, it should come as no surprise that moviegoers didn't see it in droves - its three principal actors are over the age of 65, and its driving plot point - the trauma facing a long-married man as his wife disappears into the throws of Alzheimer's disease - sounds rather cumbersome for a night out at the local theater. However, while the subject matter is certainly harrowing, Polley's script carefully matches this with an equal amount of passion and romance, all the while avoiding the sugary and trite. Matters of the heart, indeed, never taper with age.
Grant and Fiona, channeled respectively through the unforgettable talents of Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie, have been married for 44 years. While those years were not without their share of troubles, they are still endlessly devoted to one another. However, neither can any longer deny that Fiona's mental capacities are starting to elude her; she gets lost after taking an evening stroll, finds she can't recall the paths of the beautiful woodlands she's known all her life, and can no longer even navigate their kitchen.
"I think I may be beginning to disappear," she tells Grant, finally ready to accept the inevitable.
Although Christie has incurred much deserved acclaim for her unprecedented performance - it takes an actress with incredible skill to pull off such a complex role - this movie really belongs to Pinsent, who knows the power of understatement. Grant never sheds a tear as the woman he devoted his life to slowly but surely forgets who he is, but he does not need to - the look in his eyes betrays the despair and anguish in his heart. It doesn't help that Madeleine, the administrator of the hospice Fiona moves to played by the always lovely Wendy Crewson, is bureaucratic and detached.
To escape his solace Grant is able to confide in Kristy, a nurse played by the wonderful Kristin Thomson.
"She said, `Do you think it'd be fun we got married?'" he recalls.
"And what did you say?"
"I took her up on it," he says. "I never wanted to be away from her."
Pinsent really hits the nail on the head when it comes to Grant's feelings of betrayal when Fiona becomes emotionally involved with Aubrey (Michael Murphy), another Alzheimer's sufferer. Despite his efforts, however, Fiona greets him for the first time every time he comes to visit her through no fault of her own.
With his emotional needs now unfulfilled, Grant turns to Aubrey's wife Marian, played by the legendary Olympia Dukakis. The two form a close emotional bond over the loss of their spouses to the devastating illness.
Upon Grant's asking her how she is able to maintain her sanity and keep going from day to day, Marian is frank.
"Things aren't ever what you'd hope they'd be," she says. "Sometimes you just have to make the decision to be happy."
All who have ever been close to anyone affected by Alzheimer's will be clearly able to see their loved ones in Fiona and themselves in Grant and Marian. However, one need only be acquainted with the emotion of true love to have the film resonate with them. Indeed, the fact that Polley wrote and directed this as a newlywed in her 20's speaks volumes not only to its emotional immediacy but its universality.
Films like "Away From Her" are distinct from the average clutter that fills movie theaters these days for two key reasons. First, they run the emotional gamut from A to Z, while the average flick tends to do so from A to B. Second, while thoroughly entertaining, they exercise the mental muscle of their audiences - who ever said going to the movies means having to leave your brain at the door?
This one is likely to become inescapable during the awards season, so precipitate the hype and check it out now.
Movie Review: Winged Cognition
Summary: 4 Stars
27 year old Sarah Polley made her directorial debut for a feature film with this movie. She had previously directed four short films, and a TV episode. Most of her past notoriety was for being a fine actress, having already appeared in more than 50 films since 1985. She was 9 years old when she did Terry Gilliam's ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1988). She spent several years as a child star on the television series ROAD TO AVONLEA. She appeared in THE SWEET HEREAFTER, GUINEVERE, and in THE CLAIM (2000). Recently I enjoyed her work with Sam Shepard in Wim Wender's DON'T COME KNOCKING (2005).
Polley's mother died when she was 11 years old. She considers actress Julie Christie to be her "surrogate mother". She worked with her twice before in NO SUCH THING (2000), and LIFE OF WORDS (2005). Originally Polley wanted to do a feature film about a 12 year old girl who finds herself being the star of a TV series, something she knows a little about -but there was no financial interest. Then she went with adapting a short story she liked by Alice Munro, THE BEAR CAME OVER THE MOUNTAIN. She wrote the screenplay with Julie Christie specifically in mind to play Fiona.
The film's plot revolves around a retired 60ish professor who lives a comfortable lifestyle with his gorgeous wife in a cabin his mother used to own. They are forced to face the harsh reality of the wife's impending cognitive decline secondary to Alzheimer's disease. While still coherent, Fiona (Julie Christie) convinces her husband, Grant (Gordon Pinsent) that it would be prudent to allow her to check herself into a special retirement home that specializes in Alzheimer's patients. Reluctantly, the husband agreed. The institution had a 30-day waiting period before the first family visit to allow new residents to "settle in". When Grant came for his first visit he found himself greeted with a blank stare. Fiona no longer seemed to recognize him. Worse still, she had become emotionally attached to another patient -Aubrey, a mute in a wheelchair.
How far can love be stretched before it lapses into heartache? Yet the textures of this plot are turgid, and darker forces yet are at work. As a popular professor, Grant had had several affairs in the past with nubile female student admirers. It appeared that Fiona forgave him and stayed with him into their retirement -but had she? I am told, and have read that realistically Alzheimer's does not progress so aggressively in just 30 days. So was Fiona punishing Grant? Was she still capable of such a callous and shrewd machination? Perhaps.
The dialogue crackles with Stoppard-like language -most of which it seems came directly out of the Munro manuscript. But young Sarah Polley did shed some important light on several salient issues, with the real tragedy of Alzheimer's being only the tip of the iceberg; things like the reality of physical love and sex amongst seniors, forgiveness -or lack of it after decades of matrimony, and the tedious toll of unresolved regrets. Julie Christie is still radiant, sexy, and beautiful in her 60's. She makes a lot out of Fiona -savoring a plum role. Gordon Pinsent, a Canadian veteran of more than 100 films, is wonderful as Grant, showering us with his compassion, his nobility, and the unsavory aspects of his complex personality. Olympia Dukakis was perky, pessimistic, and a chain smoker as Aubrey's wife Marion -becoming Grant's new "girlfriend" in an odd plot twist. Michael Murphy did a lot through his eyes at the mute Aubrey. Kristin Thomson stole every scene she appeared in as Nurse Kristy.
This thoughtful little film challenges our preconceived notions about older adults. Although it does not pack the dramatic punch of a film like IRIS (2000) with Judi Dench, it sweeps us onto fresh plateaus of consideration, and it creates a lot for us to ponder.