Away From Her (2006)
NETFLIX SYNOPSIS: Sarah Polley directs this drama about a long-married but still very much in love couple whose lives are torn asunder when one of them must enter a rest home. Julie Christie (in an Oscar-nominated role) plays the wife, and Gordon Pinsent plays the husband desperate to ensure her comfort in the new setting while burdened with guilt over past behavior. Olympia Dukakis co-stars in this film inspired by an Alice Munro story.
REVIEW: A beautifully made film — the writing/directorial debut of Canadian actress Sarah Polley (the Sweet Hereafter) — with a luminous performance by Julie Christie as Fiona, a woman in her 60’s in the early throes of Alzheimer’s disease. When she and her husband Grant (Gordon Pinsent) can no longer ignore the realities of her disease, she enters a long-term care facility, where she becomes attached to a fellow patient. This is not a disease-of-the-week film; rather, it is a moving study of a long marriage, and a thought-provoking love story with Alzheimer’s as it’s backdrop. I also feel it is a dignified and intelligent look at the devastating impact of this disease on the victim and their loved ones.
I have to say Julie Christie is truly deserving of all the awards talk, and I do hope she wins the Oscar for this. She gives an understated performance that may not be as flashy as some of the other performances nominated, but it is very powerful. There are some great supporting players here: Pinsent a perfect equal as her sad and bewildered husband, Olympia Dukakis as the wife of the patient Fiona is in love with, and the actress playing a nurse at the care facility. It is really a wonderful surprise to see older people portrayed in such a sensitive and real manner, as supposed to everyone being a kindly grandparent or a quirky town local. Why, they even have sex, which is never portrayed in a sensitive light, and here it is. Given the fact that Polley is very young, and the screenplay is based on a short story, I was really impressed with the depth she was able to achieve here.
A moving, thought-provoking and ultimately heartbreaking but really not too depressing character study of a long marriage coming to terms with its past and future. Also, a really beautiful love story.
5 stars
Cheryl
