Time Capsule Review: "Away From Her"

I recently stumbled upon some reviews I did back in college for the La Salle Collegian. In the interest of condensing all of my reviews on this site, I've decided to upload them sporadically throughout the next few weeks. I've chosen not to update them, mostly because I like the concept of reviews as time capsules for how we feel about movies at the time we first see them.

First up: a review of Away From Her from October of 2007. As readers of this blog may have deduced by my reviews of Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell, I’m a big fan of writer/director Sarah Polley, so this seems as good a review to start with as any.

Julie Christie received an Oscar nomination for her
work in Away From Her.

In her first venture behind the camera, Sarah Polley, an acclaimed Canadian actress recognizable for lead roles in Go and the Dawn of the Dead remake, didn't take the easy way out. Despite being just 28 years old, she took on a film about a man who learns to redefine what it is to love his Alzheimer's-striken wife when her fragmenting memory causes her to leave him and their 44-year marriage behind. A difficult task no doubt, but Polley rose to the challenge and crafted Away From Her, one of 2007’s best films.

Based on Alice Munro’s short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” Polley’s screenplay (yes, she also wrote the screenplay) is relatively faithful to its source material, making only slight additions to flesh out the characters. Building upon those additions, the perfectly chosen cast is so good that they are able to not only translate but enhance Polley’s levelheaded take on the topic.

After 44 years of marriage with Grant (Gordon Pinsent), Fiona (Julie Christie) has begun to lose her memory. She begins to forget little things at first, such as putting a frying pan in the freezer. However, as her condition worsens, she decides she must move to a care facility, despite Grant’s desire to care for her at home for as long as possible. She decides on Meadowlake, a nursing home with a strict policy that says a resident can have no visits or phone calls during their first 30 days.

After the 30 day spell is up, Grant travels to the nursing home to discover he has been all but forgotten and that his wife has forged a close bond with her fellow resident, Aubrey (Michael Murphy). Although he is jealous, Grant does not resent Aubrey, but is instead saddened that another man has replaced him. In confiding with a friendly nurse (Kristen Thomson), he wonders if the whole thing isn't a show, if his wife isn't punishing him for an infidelity in his past. However, after learning a great deal of patience, he proves his love for his wife by making the ultimate sacrifice.

The cast really sells the story. The Oscar buzz swirling around Christie is warranted. At 66, she’s as radiant, witty and nuanced as she’s ever been. Meanwhile, the relatively unknown Pinsent (an actor of note in his native Canada) anchors the film. Playing an insular man, he expertly epitomizes the guilt and grief that consume his character. Never ringing a false note, he delivers a resonate performance that sells the movie. It’s impossible to view his performance here and not want to see him on the screen again.

The supporting cast is also solid. Murphy isn't given much to do, but Thomson is a spunky live-wire who both judges Grant and sympathizes with him at the same time. Additionally, Olympia Dukakis impresses as Aubrey’s wife, an abrasive woman who nevertheless feels a desire to be close to someone.

In talking about her film with the New York Times, Polley indicated she believes our culture has a hard time with love after the first year: “It is difficult, and it is painful, and it is a letdown. [But] that first year is so much less profound than what happens when you’re actually left with each other and yourself in an honest way. It was interesting to me to make a film about what love looked like after life had gotten in the way, and what remained.”

On that count, Polley succeeds with flying colors by showing a flawed relationship that can adapt and change because of the years of love invested. In Grant’s final decision, Polley asserts a true affirmation of love that is both tenderly uplifting and utterly heart breaking. A

Polley Gets Personal With the Delightful "Stories We Tell"

Sarah Polley delves into her family history for her third film.

After the excellent one-two punch of Away From Her and Take This Waltz (which I reviewed last year), actress-turned-director Sarah Polley has ventured into the realm of nonfiction with her third feature. It's hard to talk about what makes the award-winning Stories We Tell such a treat without ruining some of the documentary's surprising revelations, but it is fair to say it covers the same thematic terrain of her fiction work – marriage, infidelity and the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Using a combination of talking heads, family videos and cannily cast dramatic recreations, the film focuses on Polley’s enigmatic mother Diane, a woman with plenty of secrets who died when Polley was just 11 years old. Every player in the story – Polley's siblings and half-siblings, her father, her mother's various friends –gets a chance to offer their versions of the woman and her actions.

It’s easy to wonder why one would want to sit down and watch a documentary about a filmmaker’s mother, but the Polley brood is so intriguingly non-nuclear and each member so distinct that it’s hard not to get drawn into their orbit. Polley’s father Michael emerges as the heart of the film. When she begins to really pry into his past, he jokes, “What a vicious director you are” in a way that coveys he is both pained to dig up these emotions and impressed by the command of his daughter.

The film also makes some universal points that take it beyond the self-regarding piece it could have been. Initially it’s not clear which home videos are real and which are fabrications, but that only strengthens Polley’s argument about what she calls the “vagaries of truth.” There’s an often-unintended pliability to the way people process their pasts, and Polley captures that perfectly here.

“I’m interested in the way we tell stories about our lives, about the fact that the truth about the past is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down,” Polley says early in the film. By going the Roshomon route, Polley makes some keen points about skewed perceptions and unreliable memories, and she ultimately offers a layered presentation of Diane by stringing together the sometimes dissonant viewpoints of those left behind. A

Polley Delivers With Affecting "Take This Waltz"

Although I'm not a fan of the Scrambler, it's used
expertly by writer-director Sarah Polley.

After successfully proving she could step behind the camera with the Oscar-nominated Away From Her, actress-turned-filmmaker Sarah Polley continues her hot streak with Take This Waltz, an honest, expressive examination of longing, infidelity and the restlessness that can accompany settling in.

The movie focuses on Margot (Michelle Williams), a 28-year-old freelance writer who finds herself yearning for something more after five years of marriage to Lou (Seth Rogen), a sweet aspiring cookbook author. Margot is chock full of insecurities and desirous of steamy spontaneity, and, not being a passionate man, the contentedly oblivious Lou just doesn’t get it. Enter Daniel (Luke Kirby), a charming artist and neighbor, whose new energy and sexual openness attract Margot to consider an affair.

Polley impressively instills specificity to this universal tale of temptation. Set against a colorful and sweat-drenched hipster locale in Toronto, the film perfectly captures what In Contention’s Guy Lodge aptly termed the “mind-melting fug” of summer. Although the jobs of the principles seem a bit too precious (Lou’s cook book focuses solely on chicken and Daniel is a poor artist who makes rent by hauling a rickshaw), these feel like living breathing people.

A lot of that is courtesy of the actors. Williams is her typically excellent self, expertly conveying the flaws and fears of a woman who’s equally silly and somber. Rogen proves once again that he can play a role mostly straight when given the opportunity. As in Funny People and 50/50, he’s mostly just riffing on his everyday personality, but there’s also something else there, a more focused calm. Kirby is also good as the tentative and seductive Daniel, and Sarah Silverman gets a chance to show she can act as Lou's alcoholic sister Geraldine, particularly in her last appearance (the film tests credibility to get Margot in that scene, but the catharsis is worth it).

The film depicts a life filled with domestic hipster
bliss that nevertheless has a gap in it.

What Polley accomplishes here is all the more impressive given a rocky start that includes a contrived meet-cute and two overly transparent and neurotic speeches by Margot – one about a fear of “connections” and another concerning “momentary melancholy.” Polley stays on-the-nose throughout, with Geraldine acting as a pseudo Greek chorus and underlining thematic points outright, but those instances are far better modulated than these early missteps.

To be fair, Polley more than makes up for these issues with several expertly done sequences, including an carnal scene in which Daniel describes what he’d do to Margot if given the chance and a tour de force time-lapsed shot in a loft apartment. Even better is Polley’s decision to marry the evocative imagery of the scrambler ride to The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” in two sequences that say quite a bit about Margot’s elusive desires.

And of course, I’d be remiss not to mention the gym shower sequence, which features Williams, Silverman and a slew of less-than-desirable woman going about their business while discussing the idea of new things getting old. It’s the second time in a two-movie span that a director has chosen to put a room’s full of naked woman on screen (the first being The Master) to, highlight the objectification of women, albeit for vastly different purposes. But, don’t worry – for those who want their nudity to be a bit sexier, there’s some of that as well. B+