away from her

away from her is the directorial debut of sarah polley, who has been an actor from a young age, starring in the long-running road to avonlea and more recently in films such as exotica, the sweet hereafter, and my life without me. for her first film as a director, she has adapted a short story by alice munro, called the bear came over the mountain. the story follows fiona (julie christie) as the onset of her alzheimer's necessitates that she leave her husband, grant (gordon pinsent), of forty-some years to live in a nursing home.

in the opening scene between grant and fiona, they are washing dishes after dinner and after drying a pot, fiona puts it in the freezer. i found this to be quite effective at establishing their relationship with the current state of fiona’s alzheimer’s. from grant’s reaction we get the full effect of what their life has become in a simple expression. much of the emotion conveyed in this films is done through the facial expressions of the two stars, which in my opinion makes their casting very important and deliberate on polley’s part. the decision for fiona to enter the nursing home is ultimately her choice; grant in fact tries to convince her not to go when he discovers that he can’t see her for the first thirty days. we learn through discussions between the two that grant cheated on fiona several years before when he was a professor, but fiona says she has forgiven him. however, what becomes clear as fiona enters the nursing home and forgets who grant is, is that she has essentially chosen to leave him at this point in their marriage. she does not see grant for thirty days and begins spending time with another man in the home, aubrey (michael murphy). i think it is viable to interpret this as her punishment to grant for his adultery years ago; he is forced to watch her be in love with another man. this perspective is reinforced through grant’s conversations with one of the workers in the nursing home. the nursing home is shot with over-exposed lighting and soft focus, making it appear very idyllic, but this element of grant’s punishment gives the setting a darker component to consider along with the typical difficulties of an alzheimer’s story.

watch the trailer