Away from Her

Away from Her
by Sarah Polley

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DVD details

Actor: Gordon Pinsent, Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Olympia Dukakis, Wendy Crewson
Director: Sarah Polley
Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; French (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-11
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Lions Gate

DVD Reviews of Away from Her

DVD Review: Away From Each Other
Summary: 5 Stars

Sarah Polley was an exceptional Canadian child actress. At the wise old age of twenty-seven she has matured and made a skilled feature film debut.

"Away From Her" joins Fiona and Grant Anderson after fifty years of marriage. Fiona, played by Julie Christie in a way that makes her character vulnerable, but desirable, is advancing into the mental greyness of Alzheimer's. Grant, played by Canadian treasure Gordon Pinsent as a man who loves Fiona, but earned the lines on his face and carries regrets about some of the things in his past with Fiona.

Fiona doesn't want Grant to see her progression into dementia, and she doesn't want to be a burden. She decides to go to one of those places. They're taken aback (as a viewer I was too) when they discover that the policy of the facility is for the new resident to not receive any family contact for a month.

Fiona's condition seemed to be limited to forgetting "little things" prior to the admission. When Grant returns she looks at him as if she were looking at a stranger on a subway she thought she knew long ago.

Although their screen time seemed about even, I identified more with Grant, perhaps because of being a man myself, but I think even more because the further Fiona goes away, the less insight we have into her character. Pinsent is absolutely superb in his part - his words are soothing and experienced, and we see the hurt in his face as he can see Fiona right in front of him, but realizes that the Fiona he knew and loved for decades is no longer there. There is even a moment when we see Gordon wonders if Fiona is giving him a little extra cold shoulder because of a past wrong.

Michael Murphy plays the mute Aubrey, another resident at the facility. Fiona freely gives her attention to Aubrey while occasionally looking at Gordon as if he were a crossing guard. Olympia Dukakis does her usual excellent work as Marian, Aubrey's husband, and it makes sense that Gordon and Marian should bond a little, although I always sensed that his friendship with Marian paled in comparison to his memories of his earlier life with Fiona.

Kristen Thomson deserves mention for her role as a nurse at the facility. Nurse Kristy cares for her patients, and she cares for the families and loved ones as well. She knows about the inner turmoil that churns in the minds of the families, and she knows how the past colors the perceptions of the present.

This is a wise movie, adapted from Alice Munro's short story. Roger Ebert ends his review: "Sarah Polley emerges here as a director who is in calm command of almost impossible material. The movie says as much for her strength of character as for her skills. Anyone who could read Munro's original story and think they could make a film of it, and then make a great film, deserves a certain awe."

DVD Review: TRAGIC STORY OF DEMENTIA AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!
Summary: 4 Stars

'Away From Her' is a film that really tore my heart out, due to having gone through dealing with Dementia first hand in my family. Besides some fine performances, this film offers inspiration and humor in all the right places. It's about as enjoyable as a film like this can be and the love story is truly special showing some of the most unselfish acts I've ever seen! This is worth seeing, but keep a few tissues handy. :-)

DVD Review: The heartbreak of Alzheimer's
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a heart tugging story that will bring tears to your eyes. Beautiful Julie Christie is the Alzheimer's victim, and her husband watches her deteriorate. Just as sadly, she watches herself deteriorate.

As she does, she insists on checking in to an Alzheimer's facility, leaving her husband, who is asking her to stay with him.

The turning point of the movie is the first month in the facility. They have a rule that there is to be no contact between patients and family for the first month of residence. When that month is over and the husband visits his beloved wife, she is already in love with another man and pays scant attention to her husband, who she either doesn't recognize as her husband, or wishes to revenge herself on for his infidelities to her during their marriage. Her motive is never explained. It appears that she's innocent of a vengeful motive, sweet as she is, but her extreme deterioration in that one month doesn't seem right.

I understood it to be that she is far more comfortable as the support giver for the other man than as the pathetic wife losing her mind. With this other poor man, she comforts him, takes care of him, mothers him, gives him affection that he is desperate for. She can have a positive self image and not feel so low. She can be useful. She can be a whole woman to this man, his mom, his beloved.

There even seems to be some question as to whether Julie has sex with this man. Probably not, I suppose, but that is left in the air. There is a sudden departure. The two of them are separated. He is pulled out of the facility. Later we hear that his wife couldn't afford to leave him there. That same wife is anxious to start an affair with Julie Christie's husband, and they consummate it.

Julie Christie's husband finds himself in the position of wanting to bring his rival back to be with his beloved wife, just to stem the tide of her apathy and deterioration. He drives the other man back to visit his beloved wife. Then the movie gets one final zinger in. Julie recognizes her husband, for the first time in ages, and hugs him. We realize that it is not going to last. She'll forget him soon enough. With the two of them hugging, it's hard not to cry.

DVD Review: which end for you?
Summary: 4 Stars

An opportunity to ponder your mortality and your response. Well acted. Most would turn away. Julie's eyes are remarkable.

DVD Review: Horrible movie!
Summary: 1 Stars

This is a horrible movie! Nobody under 60 could honestly say they enjoyed it! I could see how senior citizen could like it. I'd rather stare at the wall.

Description of Away from Her

Married for almost 50 years, Grant's (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona's (Julie Christie) commitment to each other appears unwavering. Their daily life is filled with tenderness and humor; yet this serenity is broken by Fiona's increasingly evident memory loss - and her restrained references to a past betrayal. For a while, the couple is able to casually dismiss these unwelcome changes. But when neither Fiona nor her husband can deny any longer that she is being consumed by Alzheimer's disease, the couple is forced to wrenchingly redefine the limits of their love and loyalty - and face the complex, inevitable transition from lovers to strangers.

"I'm going," says a lovely, understated Julie Christie, in a heart-wrenching moment of recognition that Alzheimer's is slowly descending on her. "But I'm not gone." Away from Her, the directorial debut of young Canadian actress Sarah Polley, allows two themes--the growth of love, and the limits of the mind--to intertwine, uplift, fall, and rise again, throughout its arc. What should be relentlessly depressing is instead a film of great courage, humor, defiance--and a quality that Christie's character, Fiona, calls out in another defining moment: grace.

Away from Her chronicles a love story between Fiona and her longtime husband, Grant, played with bearlike stolidity by Gordon Pinsett, as the couple struggle with the onset and acceleration of Fiona's Alzheimer's disease. Moments of lucidity and wry observation pepper Fiona's decline, and Christie gives an unforgettable performance as a woman who is both ordinary and singular to those whom she's touched. The story is set against a frigid Canadian winter, with fields of snow as a background underscoring the bleakness of Fiona's diagnosis; yet life is constant and surprising, in the call of a meadowlark or the resurrected memory of a skunk lily. A scene of Fiona out for her daily cross-country ski shows Christie's gorgeous, sensual face in closeup against the snow, framed by a babushka, reminding the viewer of a similar scene of the decades-younger Christie in Dr. Zhivago. It's impossible not to be touched by the gifts of this extraordinary actress, through the life of this everywoman, whose very presence is shot through with grace. --A.T Hurley

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