Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.
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Reviews
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
I was very moved by this film. I thought the acting was excellent. I am mystified that so many people think it was disappointing because it was not "realistic."It's a STORY people. Guessing the same people who love Spiderman can suspend their disbelief.
Emotional, painful, frustrating journey.The story of a woman who is put in a home after she develops Alzheimer's Disease, how her and her husband cope with with this, and how their relationship is affected.Very sensitively told, making for a very emotional movie. Maybe too sensitively done: the film moves incredibly slowly. Every scene is drawn out to breaking point. Plus there are some incredibly frustrating turns of events, which add to the irritation.However, the level of engagement with the characters is high enough for you to sit through it all. It's not a perfect movie, far from it - for the reasons mentioned above and the lack of a punchy or profound ending - but is watchable and endurable.
The last thing I expected Away From Her to be is funny. The first section of the film has a remarkable sense of humour which really doesn't prepare you for the utterly heart-wrenching mid-section. It's truly painful to watch our protagonist watches his wife not only not recognise him but fall in love with another man. The performances make the film, Gordon Pisent is terrific but Julie Christie is astounding. However, the plot does drift a bit too often. There was far too many conversation scenes and not enough doing in the scenes that didn't involve Pisent and Christie. But it's a wise film that feels old yet spirited at heart. Unforgettable stuff.8/10
The wife of a retired University professor in Ontario, Canada, beautiful and literate, begins showing early signs of Alzheimer's Disease ("I'm disappearing", she says); soon it becomes apparent that her devoted husband of 45 years must commit her to a home, where she forms an attachment to another patient. Known cynically around Oscar time as the 'Julie Christie With Alzheimer's' movie, "Away From Her" is a measured, deliberately paced, absorbing but not overly emotional dramatic vehicle for the actress. Director Sarah Polley, who also adapted the New Yorker short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro, is exceedingly tasteful in setting up the pieces of this story--which do get a bit more complicated than at first appears--but she's too rosy-hued in delineating the tight bond between husband and wife. Gordon Pinsent, with his masculine stance and romantically-thick crop of salty-blonde hair, is the proverbial stalwart husband: patient, wise, dedicated, poetic. He does everything but deliver Christie to the doctors on a white horse. Late in the film, Polley slips in the notion that perhaps he hasn't been a prince all his life, but this information comes long after we see glimpses of Pinsent reading to Christie, dancing with Christie, recalling Christie's face in her youth, and visiting her every single afternoon like any other faithfully-devoted husband in the movies. While the film is very high-toned (with little messing about), it also has a subtle sly streak which creeps up on the viewer. Sometimes these changes of mood (particularly during a conversation between the husband and the general manager of the ward) have a sour affect, but mostly they help to keep the film from being a complete downer. "Away From Her" doesn't exactly offer hope in its assessment of a perfect marriage torn asunder by disease; however, it isn't your garden variety tearjerker, either. The picture gives its cast some very sensitive and nuanced scenes to play, and yet the overall presentation is (commendably) matter-of-fact. It examines the little touchstones of life without getting maudlin, a minor feat worthy of praise. **1/2 from ****