Away From Her

Posted by Nathan Deen (nathan@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 17, 2007

If there’s one thing I can infer from 2007 it’s that small, beautiful, limited release films are going unnoticed while mediocre blockbusters hog the theaters and reap the glory. Why go see Delta Farce when you can see Away From Her? I can’t be any less than thankful than I am that there’s a theater that shows these movies only a 30-minute drive from where I live.

With Away From Her, actress-turned-director Sarah Polley has made one of the most impressive and stunning directorial debuts in recent memory. How is it so impressive? Well, for one this is the best film I’ve seen so far this year. Second, there’s not a major character in the film that’s under the age of 50. Sarah Polley is 28 years old, and yet no other film this year seems to understand its characters better than Away From Her.

Away From Her is flawless from start to finish. It does everything so beautifully, but it’s highlight is its terrific character development and veteran performances. In those aspects, this film is a crowning achievement.

This film proves that there are indeed ideas for great movies, you just have to look for them. Away From Her explores a husband’s inability to cope with his wife’s Alzheimer’s disease. Polley, who also wrote the script based on Alice Munro’s short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain, doesn’t waste time getting right to the point.

We begin by meeting Grant (Gordon Pinsent, who has spent a large part of his career on television) and Fiona (Julie Christie, Doctor Zhivago) Anderson, a couple who have been married for forty-five years. Fiona is younger than Grant by a good bit since he was a professor and she was one of his students. Specific ages aren’t given for either of the characters, but I would say that Fiona is in her mid to late 50’s, which is young for a person with Alzheimer’s. We start to see the early signs of the disease in Fiona. The first example is when she forgets the word wine when she is holding a bottle of it in her hands.

Fiona’s condition worsens and she and Grant make the decision that she should be placed in a special treatment facility. The sequence in which Grant is touring the facility with the administrator is just so well executed. We see what the facility’s patients are like and how they interact with one another and their family members. At the same time the facility’s administrator acts like a product salesman.

The scene when Grant drops Fiona off the first day of her admission is beautiful and Christie and Pinsett work wonderfully together. Once Grant leaves the facility, he will be apart from Fiona for a month. She tells him to make love to her and leave as quickly as possible because it will be harder on her the longer he stays. She says “I may cry so hard I might never stop.” It appears that the further the couple grows apart from each other, the stronger the chemistry between the two actors becomes.

After a month, Fiona has settled in but hasn’t thought about Grant very much. When the two see each other for the first time in a month, Fiona makes the visit brief so she can go back to playing bridge with her new friend, Aubrey (Michael Murphy, X-Men: The Last Stand). It isn’t long before Grant realizes that Fiona has fallen in love with Aubrey, which makes sense because she can understand Aubrey better than her husband. Even worse, he’s not sure if his Fiona remembers him especially when she asks him if he’s visiting anyone.

Soon Grant realizes he isn’t the only one with these problems when he pays a visit to Aubrey’s wife, Marian (Olympia Dukakis) to discuss her husband’s relationship with his wife. The two begin to spend more time with each other, based on her suggestion of getting away from all of it.

Another great supporting character is Betty (Grace Lynn Kung), a nurse in the facility. She is an unsung hero as she shows up in scenes where Grant has nothing to do but to wait for his wife to notice him. More than Marian, Betty is the one he can go to to discuss his feelings. She seems to help Grant more than Fiona and a great thing about the film is that the audience can’t choose which one needs more help at this point.

That’s an attribute to two absolutely stellar performances by Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. Their performances are too good to have to put one over the other. When they have their own screen time, the movie shines and when they’re together, it sparkles.

Away From Her is as thoughtful and has as big of a heart as any movie you’ll ever see. It expertly depicts a sensitive subject that could come off the wrong way but it doesn’t and that’s one more impressive bit to add to Polley’s list. This is a movie that the Academy should look at come next January while selecting their nominees for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Anyone who has a relative with Alzheimer’s will love this movie and be able to relate to it. My grandfather had the disease in the late late stages of his life, so I can relate. Whether a viewer has Alzheimer’s, short-term memory loss, or develops amnesia after they see Away From Her, the film is unforgettable.

| | Read more articles by Nathan Deen