Away from Her (2006)

	Directed by: Sarah Polley	COUNTRY Canada GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Away from Her RUNNING TIME 110 minutes
	Produced by: Daniel Iron Simone Urdl Jennifer Weiss
	Written by (based on a story by Alice Munro): Sarah Polley

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Fiona Anderson	Julie Christie	½
Grant Anderson	Gordon Pinsent	½
Marian	Olympia Dukakis	½
Aubrey	Michael Murphy
Veronica	Deanna Dezmari
Madeleine Montpellier	Wendy Crewson

Review

Alzheimer's disease has become a favourite theme among filmmakers in the 2000s, which is timely given the pain and hardships that people who experience this disease directly or indirectly endure. Only a few weeks ago, a member of my family who had been living with Alzheimer's for the past ten to fifteen years passed away. His spouse had stood by him all along, largely forsaking her own physical well-being in the process. I know how incredibly mixed emotions this condition causes for the relatives and loved ones – and of course, especially for the partner.

Iris was one of my favourite movies of 2001 – a film that tried to get under the characters' skin, tried to understand their anguish. Sarah Polley's much applauded Away from Her goes about it the other way around: it uses the impact of the disease to tell a rather sloppy and pompous story that would be categorised as romantic pulp for ageing readers at your local newsstand. Polley's treatment of the nature of the disease is inaccurate, to say the least, and although the film has some beautiful moments, these are outshone by the director's desperate and self-conscious wish to make her film even more beautiful and sincere.

The result is a lack of sincerity. The acting is fine, given the circumstances. For instance, both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent give wholehearted performances, so why do they still not feel like people who have lived full lives outside of these 110 minutes? Maybe because they aren't given space to breathe, but rather are subjected to a series of contrived events to which they seem to react in largely the same way. You would think that being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, being dumped, or being adulterous would stir up some irrational emotions – some existential soul-searching – but not for these people. Fiona Anderson happily admits herself into the clinic once she realises she is suffering from Alzheimer's. That doesn't ring true.

Away From Her is more disappointing than it is bad, because it has a lot more potential than it ultimately reaches. Either something was lost in the editing, or something was forgotten in the writing process. At any rate, the result is a disappointing and rather crudely directed film.