Skip to main content

AWAY FROM HER. Dir Sarah Polley. 2007

Image result for movie images away from her


Fiona and Grant have been married for 44 years. Filmed in Canada, the beautiful snowscapes, sunlight on snow, and red tinted sunsets, make a fitting backdrop to Julie Christie’s cool, elegant beauty.

She plays the wife of a retired University lecturer Grant, (Gordon Pinsent), who succumbs to the early onset of Alzheimer’s. At first it troubles her, then it intrigues her and she says she feels as though she is ‘disappearing.’

It is she who decides when it is time for her to go into a home, who instigates the process and, when they arrive, who determinedly checks herself in. She bravely comments that it will be like staying at an hotel. What other line can she take? Grant’s quietly desperate attempts to dissuade her only threaten her fortitude. She has to be strong for them both.

It is hard for her to say goodbye too, but it is so much harder for Grant to go home and be without her. It is always hardest to be the one left behind. The unkindest cut of all is that the home insists on a thirty day period of ‘cold turkey’ when the new inpatient may have no visitors. Grant visits her at the end of this time to discover that he is erased from her memory and, instead, she has formed a new attachment to another inmate.

The film focuses on her mental decline, with Alzheimer’s being compared to a house with the lights going off one by one, and on her resulting physical decline. Her ladylike poise degenerates into unkempt distraction. It is an excruciatingly painful focus on loss and loneliness and runs the risk of being too much to bear. There is no hope: there is only one way for her to go.

True love is selfless and it is Grant’s turn to think only of her happiness. It seems almost his opportunity for making amends and Polley’s film is testament to the depth of enduring, accepting love. Fine performances by Christie and Pinsent carry the unremitting misery with great sensitivity and intelligence.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Running ‘till your nipples bleed

An email from a friend of mine arrives; she complains that, at work, she is routinely subjected to gruesome accounts of female colleagues’ intimate medical procedures and gynaecological problems. I am all commiseration because I, too, have had years of listening to workplace chats about periods, childbirth and sex lives. Oh please. Later, I wander off for a walk in the early evening sunshine and it is so silent and so beautiful that I flop down on the grass and lay awhile gazing out over the rolling fields, and the mouth of the river, and fall into a reverie. Two men pass by. A few minutes later sounds of women’s talk float nearer and, by the time the two females of the species draw level with me, I have risen up from my deliciously recumbent position in the meadow, alert and tense, something like a meerkat. “I do feel for her. Going down that IVF route is such an emotional roller coaster. I was never prepared for how terrible it was going to be.” I remain frozen in my meerkat position...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ian McEwan. Amsterdam. London: QPD, 1998

McEwan’s novel about ambition, personal betrayal and revenge features Clive, a modern composer trying to complete a major orchestral work, his friend Vernon, an editor trying to save his ailing newspaper, and Garmony, an unscrupulous right-wing politician on the rise. In common, all three have, in previous years, been lovers of recently dead Molly. They meet at her funeral and the story follows the next few weeks of the men’s lives. Vernon and Clive act as one another’s conscience, each infuriating the other. Which is more important, honesty, friendship and trust or Vernon’s newspaper and Clive’s symphony? The novel presents the difficulties of balancing personal and public morality, the importance of private shame and public reputation, the conflict between taking a moral decision for the greater good, or putting first ones own desires. Not just a simple exposé of a politician with a vulnerable side, Amsterdam is full of double standards and surprises, and takes a long, cynical look a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ralph McTell, Truro, 19 April 2007

Ralph's mates from Pentewan have all turned up in a mini bus to hear him sing and play, and he walks onto the stage looking comfortable; he's amongst friends. He's a big man; very charismatic, with a warm smile and a beguiling aura of powerful gentleness. He's relaxed, we're relaxed, and he sits with his guitar, chatting easily between songs, and playing with an easy familiarity with us, and with his material. His guitar playing is intricate and playful; going from ragtime to blues to folk, and his voice is deep and rich. He comments that he's put together quite a serious programme for the two hours he's on stage; it's true that the lyrics are thoughtful and the subjects serious, but there is light material too; a tune about Laurel and Hardy, and one or two covers of old blues numbers. When he sings Streets of London there are happy sighs and the audience sing along very softly; as softly as a whisper. It feels as intimate as if we were just a few people...
Post a Comment
Read more