Away From Her

Cert: 12A

Evening Standard rating Derek Malcolm's rating
Three of five stars

Dir: Sarah Polley. Cast: Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon
Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Kristen Thomson

Country: CAN. 2006. 109mins

In sickness and in health
By Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard 26.04.07

Picture caption: Never better: Julie Christie as the wife who's losing
her mind


Sarah Polley's film, based on Alice Munro's short story The Bear Came
Over the Mountain, is about Alzheimer's disease and the husbands,
wives and children who try desperately to care for its sufferers.

It is hardly a cheerful watch. But a strong cast sweetens the pill and
its obvious sincerity counteracts a slow and rather plodding exposition.

Julie Christie, who has seldom been better, plays Julie, the wife of
Grant (Gordon Pinsent), who knows her mind and memory are going and
bravely insists on being placed in a home that specialises in the disease.

Forced to leave her alone for 30 days so that she can adjust, Grant
eventually finds Julie virtually ignoring him and totally engrossed in
Aubrey (Michael Murphy), a fellow patient. But he still persists in
trying to make contact.

A relationship with Aubrey's wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) gives Grant
some relief until she takes her husband back home, causing a further
deterioration in Julie's condition. There is hope by the film's close,
but it's hardly a feel-good ending.

Christie's performance seems totally true to Julie's circumstances,
showing how small glimpses of awareness are snuffed out, little by
little, by the disease.

And though Pinsent's rather doggedly drawn Grant hardly matches her,
Away from Her makes its point to some purpose.

Perhaps it needs a Bergman to do such a subject full justice. But at
least Polley, at 27, suggests that her first film as writer-director
is unlikely to be her last.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/film-23336712-details/Away+From+Her/filmRevie\
w.do?reviewId=23394003