Away from Her (2007, Polley)

Every year there are films that exist neatly around the performance of a single person. Over the last few years we've had movies like "Monster" and "Transamerica" that were not really great films but achieved a certain level of universal acclaim (and therefore free publicity) because of their lead females performances. "Away from her" fits well into this category of films - those driven by their thespians. Even though there are other aspects of the film that are good, they are overshadowed by Julie Christie's performance as Fiona, a woman who suffers from the acute stages of Alzheimer, realises that for her husband to cope with her on a daily basis is a great challenge and decides to check herself into a clinical facility that will take care of her.

The real poignancy of the situation is once inside, Fiona starts to forget that she is married and cannot recognize her husband anymore, trading his affections for the care of new found friends with similar conditions. As directed by Sarah Polley, in her debut, the film is presented from the point of view of the husband. It is frustrating for him to try and remind his wife who he is and what he means to her. Despite the setup being heartfelt and tragic, because it is from the POV of the husband, there is little to differentiate it from your typical TV disease movie of the week. Polley's approach is clinical and almost detached and though she proves that at 28 she certainly has an old soul, her film lacks one at its center. To be honest, even the performance, thought good, was to me not grand enough to garner the universal acclaim that it did - in the final analysis, it may have been nothing more than the industry rallying for Julie Christie to be rewarded for a career spanning so many decades, but a film celebrating the love, and ultimately loss, of a couple of sextagenarian's is not something I would recommend.

P.S. Think of this film as a 100 minute version of the old couple segments from "Notebook".

Rating: 3/5

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