“I think I may be beginning to disappear.”
Director/actor Sarah Polley’s latest film examines the ravages of Alzheimer’s Diseases, not only on the person suffering from it, but the effect upon those loved one’s who have to suffer along with the patient. The film boasts tour de force performances from Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie.
Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have been married for over forty years. Fiona starts to show the early signs of Alzheimer’s Disease. She puts the frying pan in the freezer and offers some dinner guests some more wine but suddenly cannot remember the word for wine.
Being a strong willed woman, she starts looking into nursing care facilities, but Grant is, understandably, not willing to put her into assisted living yet. She decides upon a facility, but again Grant is putting off the inevitable. The nursing home doesn’t admit patient during the Christmas holidays, so come New Years Day Fiona will begin her new year in the nursing home.
Another policy is disturbing Grant in that family members are not allowed to visit patients for the first 30 days so that the resident will adjust to the new surroundings. For Grant those 30 days are extremely hard, however when he makes his visit bright and early on the 31st day he finds something more disturbing.
Fiona is social to him but doesn’t seem to realize that he is her husband and even worse she has become attached to another resident, the mute, wheelchair bound Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Eventually Aubrey’s wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) can’t afford to keep Aubrey in the home anymore and his absence makes Fiona take a turn for the worse.
Sarah Polley is quite the director. She’s primarily known as an actress and has appeared in the Sweet Hereafter and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. However, the “oh yeah” moment for me was that she played the little girl in the grand confection produced by Terry Gilliam called the Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
She has directed shorts and an episode of a television show but I believe that this is her first bigger budget film. If this is a sign of things to come then I think she’ll have a grand career ahead of her. I kept thinking that the film took place in Sweden since it reminded me of Ingmar Bergman so, Scenes from a Marriage suffering from Alzheimer’s if you will. Pinsent reminds me of an actor that I’ve seen in Bergman’s works too.
However, the story takes place in Polley’s native Canada so you won’t be hearing too much Swedish. Julie Christie is positively luminous as Fiona. She’s still the beauty even in her old age and it makes her slide into Alzheimer’s the more heartbreaking. Pinsent is not an actor that I had heard of, but his skills are unsurpassed in the role of Grant.
Even Olympia Dukakis and Michael Murphy (in a near silent role) are in fine form in supporting roles. One of the ironies and comedy relief moments involves a patient that used to be the play-by-play man of a sports team so he narrates some of the action in that style.
A truly touching moment is when he’s being escorted down the hall and passes Grant after he’s had some devastating news and says “there’s a man whose heart is breaking” amongst all the other chatter. It’s truly a great film and should hopefully be remembered when Oscar season comes around.
Away from Her is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include a commentary with star Julie Christie and 8 minutes of deleted scenes with an optional commentary by director Polley. For such a grand film it feels lacking in the special features department.
If I could hand out Oscars both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent would definitely be in the running in my book. However, who knows what the Academy will do (I think this one is eligible for next years Oscars?). Excellent performances from both of them for a very moving film about the ravages of a terrible disease.
Away from Her is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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