Away from Her
I saw this movie at an early press screening, literally months ago, and I haven’t been compelled to write anything. It saddens me slightly to conclude that my inaction is symptomatic of a profound disinterest. After all, “Away from Her” is the writing and directing debut of Sarah Polley, the fantastic Canadian actor whom I’ve admired since her intense starring performance — at age 9 — as Sally Salt in Terry Gilliam’s visionary “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” Polley also had supporting roles in two of the best movies of the 1990s, both directed by her countryman, Atom Egoyan — “Exotica” and “The Sweet Hereafter.” She’s haunting in both.
Watching “Away from Her,” I was heartened to see that Polley paid attention on Egoyan’s sets: She gracefully appropriates his artful, intuitive transitions between past and present (Egoyan calls it “weaving with time”). But “Away from Her” is more prosaic than Egoyan’s work. He was an innovator from the minute he got behind a camera, and it’s impossible to expect Polley to possess the same talent. “Away from Her,” set somewhere in rural Canada, is in many ways a conventional first feature — talky and earnest, at times unwilling to let the story get in the way of what the director has to say. Julie Christie stars as Fiona, the wife of a retired literature professor. She finds out she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and proactively moves into an assisted-living community. But why is she so eager to go? In a luminous performance — no shortage of those in her career — Christie makes Fiona’s decision an act of feisty independence. Her marriage to Grant (Gordon Pinsent) has not been perfect. Although her memory is fading, she clearly recalls the details of his past infidelities. Her move into the home, and her codependent frienship with the nearly incapacitated Aubrey (Michael Murphy, looking shockingly old and frail), force Grant to confront the reality that his marriage to Fiona was far more complicated than he’d like to admit. Pinsent, a veteran Canadian actor, is superb in the role, although it’s hard not to wish for more Christie. As the title suggests, much of the movie dramatizes Grant’s difficult adjustment to his wife’s absence. I almost wish it had been called “Away from Him.”
Here’s where I find the movie more troublesome: As someone who’s seen two relatives suffer the excruciating decline of Alzheimer’s, I’m suspicious about poetic treatments of the disease. If my step-grandfather, and later my grandfather, could have confronted it with Fiona’s dignity and clarity of purpose, I’d have been heartened; sadly, I just don’t think it’s possible. “Away from Her” uses Alzheimer’s as a window into Fiona’s soul. A nice idea, but entirely wrongheaded. The disease envelops its victims, swallowing their personalities until there’s nothing left. I also think Polley is a bit glib about the indignities of assisted-living homes and the attitudes of those who work there. She has it out for them, and I’m not persuaded by her depiction of nursing-home culture.