So far, it seems The Dork Report is defin­i­tive proof of the tru­ism that crit­i­cism is cheaper than praise; it’s eas­ier to pick apart what’s wrong with a bad or mediocre movie than it is to praise what’s good. So sit­ting down to write some­thing about a really great film like Away From Her, I find myself at a loss for what to say.

Already a sea­soned actor at 29, Sarah Pol­ley proves her­self a mature and sen­si­tive writer/director on her very first out­ing. Although con­cerned with Alzheimer’s, Away From Her is thank­fully not a movie “about” a dis­ease. I felt the biopic Iris, although finely acted by no less than Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, and Jim Broad­bent, fell into the trap of edu­cat­ing the audi­ence about a dis­ease more than look­ing at the expe­ri­ences of the real-life fig­ures whose lives were surely defined by more than Iris Murdoch’s disease.

Julie Christie and Gor­don Pin­sent in Away From Her

Fiona (Julie Christie) and long-time hus­band Grant (Gor­don Pin­sent) are already aware of her rel­a­tively early-onset Alzheimer’s as the movie begins, but react to its sud­den pro­gres­sion with dif­fer­ent degrees of pre­pared­ness. Worse, as her short term mem­ory leaves her, mem­o­ries of old trau­mas resur­face just as it is time for her to enter an assisted liv­ing com­mu­nity, mak­ing an impos­si­ble sit­u­a­tion no eas­ier for either of them. The next time Grant sees her, she appears to have for­got­ten him alto­gether… or has she? The pos­si­bil­ity that Grant may be read­ing his fears into Fiona’s behav­ior and lapses is one of the most pow­er­ful ques­tions of the film.

Sarah Pol­ley, writer/director of Away From Her

The still-gorgeous Julie Christie deserves an Oscar for her Cana­dian accent alone. Christie’s long resume and Oscar nom­i­na­tion put her in the enter­tain­ment media’s spot­light this win­ter, but Gor­don Pin­sent is excel­lent as Grant, arguably the lead role. Away From Her may be a pow­er­fully sad movie, but not one that any­one should be afraid of being bummed out by.

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Offi­cial movie site: www.memory-catcher.net

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to me.

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