Away From Her

Away From Her is a heartrending drama about one woman’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease and the husband who is forced to watch her mind deteriorate. Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have been married for more than 40 years when she begins to realize that she’s slowly forgetting things and becoming unable to function as she once did. Together, they decide that she’d be best served in a facility for people with similar difficulties and therein lies the heartbreak. A moment to moment recap would be futile, but it’s easy to imagine how this kind of material could be painfully tragic. One of the beautiful things about this film is the delicacy with which it treats its characters. This could be fodder for a dull, fatuous movie of the week, but the steady, subtle style of actress turned first time director Sarah Polley and the nuanced performances of her brilliant cast turn this into one of the finest films of the year so far.

The film depicts a wonderfully multidimensional and believable couple who has had both good and bad times and who share, early in the film as her condition is just beginning, moments together that are full of life and humor. It’s doubly tragic then, when down the line Fiona no longer really recognizes her husband and cannot really understand why he is visiting so often. He confuses her and so she begins something of an affair with another patient which is obviously crushing to Grant. His great act of kindness is the way he tolerates whatever Fiona needs to be happy. When people ask him why he visits just to watch her spend her days with her new beau, he simply says that he wants to see her and that he could not live without seeing her. They share a very lovely yet not saccharine bond that’s falling apart, but occasionally emerges despite the disease from time to time in mesmerizing, joyous relapses.

I honestly cannot say enough about this film or the work of Christie and Pinsent who each delivers a masterful performance that truly brings these troubled characters to life. Sarah Polley’s career as an actress has stalled as of late, but as a filmmaker she’s just beginning to show us what she is capable of doing. Here she adapts a short story (“The Bear Came Over The Mountain”) into a stunning feature film of simple beauty and quiet truth. It’s a subject that’s not often covered with this degree of sincerity and brutal honesty, and I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to go out and see this truly amazing film.

Grade: A