Away from Her

 

***.5/****     AWAY FROM HER (PG-13)

Sarah Polley is a former child star and an accomplished 28-year old actress and singer that has received acclaimed recognition in her home country and abroad for her work in the films The Sweet Hereafter, My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words, which also starred Tim Robbins and Julie Christie. In 2007, Polley makes her directorial debut with a film she wrote based upon Alice Munro’s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” entitled Away from Her.

Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Christie) are now entering their 44th year of marriage, and Grant has become concerned for his wife who is becoming more and more forgetful by the day. Together, the two decide it would be best to enter Fiona into a treatment facility for Alzheimer’s Disease, which forces the couple to become separated for the first lengthy amount of time in their lasting relationship, while Fiona begins her orientation period.

But once Grant can begin to visit his wife in the treatment facility, he discovers that Fiona has not only forgotten all about him, but she has shifted all of her affection and love towards that of another man, who is actually a patient in the facility. As Grant’s marriage to Fiona and his personal happiness begins to crumble the more the two unfortunately grow apart, his love for his wife leads Grant to make a self-sacrificing decision in order to ensure Fiona’s happiness.

A poignant and eloquent piece of filmmaking, Away from Her’s beauty arrives through its delicate and straightforward narrative style that has been wonderfully crafted by Polley. The emotionally devastating effects of Alzheimer’s Disease serve solely as the backdrop to what eventually becomes a challenging test of love and fidelity that hits all of the emotional chords located within the heart and within the brain.

The subtlety found in Polley’s script allows the movie to stray far away from the Lifetime Original Movie it could have become, and instead develop into the engaging, touching and powerful drama that she set out to make. The picture is not told in linear fashion, which allows an audience member’s mind to race a few steps ahead in the story, but Polley directs the small-scale movie with a beautiful grace and allows her actors to completely own their roles.

Academy Award winner Christie (Finding Neverland, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) is superb as Fiona, carefully losing herself and the audience in her role, while co-star Pinsent (The Good Shepherd, The Shipping News) is truly terrific as Grant, capturing the sadness and confusion of a distraught husband in fantastic fashion. Stellar performances from supporting cast members Olympia Dukakis (3 Needles) and Kristen Thomson also add greatly to the movie’s fine ensemble.

A compassionate and elegant character study, Away from Her is one of the more remarkable and oustanding films of the year.