Update March 4: Away From Her won 7 Genie Awards last night in Toronto, Canada. Among them are Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In light of all the awards Julie Christie is garnering in this Awards Season, first winning the Best Actress Golden Globe, then getting an Oscar nod, and just now winning the Screen Actors Guild’s Best Actress Award all for her role in Away From Her, plus director Sarah Polley’s Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, I’m re-posting here my review of the movie I wrote 8 months ago in May, 2007. For those who missed the movie released in theatres last year, it’s timely to read the review and watch the DVD of this beautiful Canadian film, in preparation for the Oscars coming up February 24, 2008.
Away From Her (2006)–How can you turn a good short story onto the screen without compromising its quality? … By turning it into a screenplay written by an equally sensitive and passionate writer, and then, through her own talented, interpretive eye, re-creates it into a visual narrative. Along the way, throw in a few veteran actors who are so passionate about what the script is trying to convey that they themselves embody the message. Such ‘coincidents’ are all happening in the movie Away From Her.
Sarah Polley has made her directorial debut with a most impressive and memorable feat that I’m sure things will go even better down her career path. What she has composed on screen speaks much more poignantly than words on a page, calling forth sentiments that we didn’t even know we had. As Alzheimer’s begins to take control over Fiona, what can a loving husband do? Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent stir up thoughts in us that we’d rather bury: how much are we willing to give up for love, or, how would we face the imminence of our loved ones’ and our own mental and physical demise.
Based on the story by Alice Munro, ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’, Polley brings out the theme of unconditional love not with your typical Hollywood’s hot, young, and sexy on screen, but aging actors in their 60’s and 70’s. It may not be as pleasurable to watch wrinkled faces hugging and kissing, or a man and a woman in bed, bearing age spots and all, but such scenes effectively beg the question: why feel uncomfortable?
Why does love has to be synonymous with youth, beauty, and romance? It is even more agonizing to watch how far Grant is willing to go solely for love of Fiona. Lucky for us, both writers spare us the truly painful at the end. It is through persistent, selfless giving that one ultimately receives; and however meager and fleeting that reward may seem, it is permanence in the eyes of love. And it is through the lucid vision of a youthful 27-year-old writer/director that such ageless love is vividly portrayed….Oh, the paradoxes in life.
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Arti, I dug up your post because Julie Christie was on public radio this morning, being interviewed by her friend, Renee Montagne, and I immediately remembered your post. I thought Julie was so funny and refreshing! Here is the link to the NPR interview in case you want to listen to or read it.
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onlyanovel: Thanks for the link! Yes, I’ll definitely check it out.
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