Away From Her

Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent in Away From Her

This arrived on DVD last week after a very limited theatrical run earlier in the year. It received good notices from those that saw it and Julie Christie has been touted as a possible Best Actress nominee come year end so I thought I'd check it out.

Sarah Polley takes the reigns behind the camera for the first time. Probably best known for her starring role in the excellent Go in 1999, she takes on Alice Munro's short story that looks at the effect of Alzheimer's on a couple who have enjoyed 44 years of marriage. Christie plays Fiona: mentally acute as the film begins, but someone who recognises that her lapses in memory are a sign of something more serious, namely Alzheimer's. There's a particularly good scene where she reads to her husband Grant, Gordon Pinsent, the sort of symptoms he can expect to deal with if he takes on her care. It's actually her decision to become institutionalised as she doesn't want to put him through the sorts of things she's read about.

Polley's film intelligently shifts its focus onto Grant very quickly. This is his story. It's about the suffering he is going through both with the initial decision to put her in the are home, the 30 days that he's not allowed to visit whilst she settles in and then the inevitable decline in her mental state as the film progresses. Fiona becomes a secondary character and it's Grant who's pain we share as he loses the connection he had with Fiona. It's very clear he's devoted to her - he becomes a daily visitor to the care home and will spend all day waiting patiently to spend time with his wife, although as she becomes more and more institutionalised that time becomes more and more scant. Yet Grant waits for hours, sitting, watching Fiona. It's a touching film and one that hangs on every underplayed, subtle nuance of Pinsent's wonderful performance. Christie too is perfectly good but I feel her reputation - the 3 Oscar noms including 1 win, is what's getting her the focus in a film where the real award-worthy performance comes from the 77 year old Pinsent. If he doesn't land in my top 5 come year end I'll have been treated to some breathtaking performances in the interim.

Polley's direction is solid, although there's a couple of missteps. A couple of times things are spelled out when they needn't although that's a minor quibble in a very fine debut effort.

B+