Away from Her (2006)

94% of critics liked it
(143 reviews)
80% of users liked it
(112,231 ratings)

Filmmaker Atom Egoyan -- a longtime onscreen collaborator with the gifted young actress Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter) -- executive-produced Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her, starring Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy, and Wendy Crewson. Adapted by Polley from a short… More Filmmaker Atom Egoyan -- a longtime onscreen collaborator with the gifted young actress Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter) -- executive-produced Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her, starring Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy, and Wendy Crewson. Adapted by Polley from a short story by Alice Munro, this small-scaled two-character drama concerns Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Christie), a long-married couple, well into their golden years, who are much in love and connected to one another on every level. "Soul mates" in the purest sense of the term, the two feel a sense of ease and tranquility in their rural home. But when Fiona's memory begins to slip away and she insists on being taken to a rest home, the decision stirs up torrents of guilt and regret in Grant's heart. The rules of the center only complicate matters, as they forbid visitation and communication with Fiona for an interminable period of time. He determines to support his wife at all costs, even if must happen at the expense of his own peace of mind. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 49 min.
Directed By: Sarah Polley
Written By: Sarah Polley
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Jan 20, 2007 Wide
On DVD: Sep 11, 2007
Studio: Lionsgate

Critic Reviews

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper
Sarah Polley, a terrific actress, now serves notice that she is a director to watch.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Beautifully written, from an Alice Munro short story, this movie directed by an actress rarely missteps, even when it bravely includes the dark humor inherent in this situation.
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle
Away From Her got to me in a way no other movie has this year, eliciting copious tears.
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle
Sarah Polley's sad, wise and simply dazzling directorial effort beams with warmth.
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News
Away From Her deals with a subject that easily could have turned maudlin. But the performances in Away From Her are pitch-perfect throughout, and Polley never begs for an emotional response she doesn't try to earn.
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
Upon seeing Away From Her again, I'm content with my sense memory. I'm even more pleased with how much of this fine film's nuance and detail feel fresh.
Nick Rogers, Suite101.com
No one dreams of the twilight transpiring in "Away From Her," but, in its words, it's not bad luck. It's just life. You can't beat life. A tenderly told tragedy about Alzheimer's Disease's erosive effects, Sarah Polley's film avoids movie-of-the-week sap.
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Too content with its own "maturity" and "restraint," yet it invaluably offers Christie for audiences in delicate contemplation, and chaste consummation
Dan Callahan, Slant Magazine
Sometimes extreme physical beauty grows more complex, more satisfying with age; it's rare, but it happens.
Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
Christie is brilliant as steely but brittle Fiona, a woman who knows her mind completely and yet, in the end, cannot hang on to it, while Pinsent eloquently portrays the gradual ebbing away of a partnership, as delicate and unstoppable as snow-melt.
Enrique Buchichio, Uruguay Total
Una bella historia de amor a merced de una enfermedad, filmada con delicadeza por Sarah Polley y sensiblemente interpretada por Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent y Olympia Dukakis.
Wesley Lovell, Oscar Guy
A beautifully acted, poignant film about a man who slowly loses his wife to Alzheimer's.
Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope
A complex series of relationships revolve around a nursing home romance.
Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze
A movie about memory and disease, without in any way being your basic disease of the week weepie that substitutes easy pity for emotional potency.
Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze
Julie Christie as an Alzheimer's afflicted wife achieves the perfect psychological mixture of despair, mystery, rebellion against the unappreciated devotion that has been her lot in married life, and an ultimate odd but eloquent personal liberation.
Louis Proyect, rec.arts.movies.reviews
Hallmark card presentation of the onset of Alzheimer's. Totally sincere and totally unrealistic.
Beth Accomando, KPBS.org
Christie (with whom Polley acted in Hal Hartley's No Such Thing) is still a radiant presence at 66 and she rivets us to the screen.

Read all 17 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Bob S

I thought I was watching a great Atom Egoyan movie. Turns out I was watching a great Sarah Polley movie. Very poignant, very Canadian. Really liked this film. Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie both gave wonderfully full performances.
Nicki M

I struggled getting into this one, just because it is such a horrible subject (altzheimers disease). Obviously this was never going to be a laugh a minute. However, the acting by both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent is so well done that it somehow doesn't wind up totally… More
I struggled getting into this one, just because it is such a horrible subject (altzheimers disease). Obviously this was never going to be a laugh a minute. However, the acting by both Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent is so well done that it somehow doesn't wind up totally depressing, even though it probably should be. A bit different to what you normally see in the movies. Recommended.
Red L

I have put off seeing this movie. I find movies about Alzheimer's scary since my mother went through it before she passed on. But scary or not, you should see "Away from her". It is wonderfully played and wonderfully directed. Sarah Polley just shows you what… More
I have put off seeing this movie. I find movies about Alzheimer's scary since my mother went through it before she passed on. But scary or not, you should see "Away from her". It is wonderfully played and wonderfully directed. Sarah Polley just shows you what Alzheimer's can do.
Craig S

Directed by: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Olypmia Dukakis, Gordon Pinsent. <<"I'd like to make love, and then I'd like you to go. Because I need to stay here and if… More
Directed by: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Olypmia Dukakis, Gordon Pinsent. <<"I'd like to make love, and then I'd like you to go. Because I need to stay here and if you make it hard for me, I may cry so hard I'll never stop.">> The story introduces us to elderly married couple Fiona and Grant, of 44 years, who are still very much in love since they day they got married. Fiona has Alzheimer's and is slowly deteriorating away at such a young age, it has come to the point that they must send her to a nursing home. There, she is left for 30 days to adjust away from Grant (or as such, the other way around) and when he goes to visit, he must deal with the pain of what she has come to and the strange affection Fiona has built with another male patient. No words of mine can describe the sheer beauty and brilliance of this film, a film deserving of Oscars, that I hope this time next year, the film will be recognized by a wider audience. The strongest element of this film is most certainly Sarah Polley, a young actress of 28 years old doing her first directional/writing feature debut and she is wise beyond her years. She has created a poetic masterpiece that is so pure and so well developed, the dialogue is amazingly strong and thoughtful, she injects such humanity and heart into every element of this picture that she seems to finally be a light in dark Hollywood. Julie Christie has only ever been a name to me, being the age that I am, I don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing her films to see why her name is praised so much...now I can see why. She delivers one of the most heartwarming, heartbreaking, powerfully poetic performances in many years, she shows such great range and her experience shines through on screen, if she doesn't win the Oscar next year, then it will be a disgrace. The supporting cast is also very strong, from the humorous ex-sports caster and cheeky elderly woman, to the simple roles of silence from the patients, but the standout is Gordon Pinset. Another actor I wish I had seen along time ago. He has a very tricky role that requires a lot of depth,control and most of all, believability...and he hits it right on the head. Its all in his eyes and his face, he shows wisdom in his years, his face appears very detailed to show a hard life, his eyes have so much love and loss in them, that he steals every scene he is in. Unforgettable, poetic, deep, moving, thoughtful, heartwarming, heartbreaking...no words of mine can do this film any justice, it needs to be seen and loved. A masterpiece. 90/100 << "I think all we can aspire to in this situation is a little bit of grace. " >>
Arash X

Not a bad movie but it's so overrated, The main storyline is good and all but the movie is somehow uninteresting specially in its dialogue lines
Mark H

Overrated TV style movie about husband's inability to make peace with his wife's Alzheimer's disease. Difficult to care about a character who has no emotion for the husband that loves her.
Lanning :

Because I have known people who've died from complications due to Alzheimer's, and because my dad is actually right now "on the second floor," it is difficult for me to take this film to task. So I'll go easy with just this one sticking point. The whole… More
Because I have known people who've died from complications due to Alzheimer's, and because my dad is actually right now "on the second floor," it is difficult for me to take this film to task. So I'll go easy with just this one sticking point. The whole adultery angle, historically in one marriage, and current in both, is pervasive to a point of undercutting and even obscuring the depth of love these two pairs of husbands and wives have felt for each other and how each has been impacted by the disease acting upon one spouse. Pinsent's bartering with forced companionship and finally sex with Dukakis for the hope of bringing happiness to his wife by hauling Murphy back to the care facility is fairly disturbing. He was a philanderer then, and he's a philanderer now. Maybe he would be well served if Christie were in part seeking to punish him for his wandering eye by "faking" the progression of her illness. Did they really want to introduce this into the story? It's a mistake. I've read and enjoyed a lot of Munro, but I've not read this story. My guess is, if this is a close adaptation, that I would not enjoy the story. Enough. Julie Christie pulls off one of her better performances here, but if you want to see a truly moving film about the devastating effects of Alzheimer's, you must see Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no kioku) with Ken Watanabe.
Tim S

This movie has some heartbreaking scenes, but there are also a couple of scenes that seem to be from a totally different movie.
Stella D

a quiet bittersweet film about the tragedy of alzheimer's. really touching and very nice job by sarah polley in her directorial debut. much better than the notebook actually
Sarah G

Director:Sarah Polley Released: 2007 Stars: Gordon Pinsent,Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis and Alberta Watson Genre: Drama / Romance Country: Canada <a… More
Director:Sarah Polley Released: 2007 Stars: Gordon Pinsent,Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis and Alberta Watson Genre: Drama / Romance Country: Canada <a href="http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q202/sarah88_uk/?action=view&current=_87.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q202/sarah88_uk/_87.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> Fiona and Grant are an Ontario couple who have been married for over 40 years. Now, in the oncoming twilight of their years, they are forced to face the fact that Fiona's "forgetfulness" actually is Alzheimer's Disease. After Fiona wanders away and is found after being lost, they agree she must go into a nursing home. For the first time in the five decades their relationship has spanned, they are forced to undergo a long-time separation since the nursing home has a "no-visitors" policy for the first 30 days of a patient's stay, so they can adjust to their new surroundings. When Grant visits Fiona after the orientation period, he is devastated to find out that not only has she seemingly forgotten him, Fiona has transferred her affections to another man. The other man is Aubrey, a wheelchair bound mute patient at the nursing home. As the distance between husband and wife grows, Grant must draw upon his love for Fiona to perform an act of self-sacrifice in order to ensure her happiness. Review coming sometime soon....well....maybe
Michael S

Better than even it's high acclaim had lead me to believe. An extraordinary directorial debut from Sarah Polley.
Drew S

Julie Christie's performance in Away From Her is one of the three frontrunners for 2007's Best Actress race, and I think it deserves the win. I think the creation of a compelling original character is always more impressive than a mimicry job, and as fantastic as Marion… More
Julie Christie's performance in Away From Her is one of the three frontrunners for 2007's Best Actress race, and I think it deserves the win. I think the creation of a compelling original character is always more impressive than a mimicry job, and as fantastic as Marion Cotillard was in La Vie En Rose, Christie's performance is less showboaty and more human. Ellen Page is kind of choking on their dust, but some seem to disagree; to each their own. Not to mention that this film is the strongest of the three competitors, a heartbreaking and turbulent jewel from Sarah Polley. Away From Her deals with the death of love in a very odd way. I found it surprisingly difficult to watch that love fade from Fiona's mind while it still burns brightly in Grant's - a termination of their 45-year marriage in the worst of ways. I wouldn't call this a tearjerker, because it's too restrained for flashy emotional displays. What it is is a sobering, tragic tale. It just made me feel kind of bummed out and heartsick. Even the ending, which closes the film on a ray of hope, is brought back to moribund reality when you remember an earlier line from a nurse. This could easily have become a fatty angst-fest, but Polley does a better job than that. Like I said before, the characters keep themselves from exploding into any hysterics or long-winded emotional rumination. The movie is infused with just a few touches of humor and levity, which kept me from being completely miserable the entire time. Away From Her is always full of bright snowy light; it's difficult to describe its effect on the movie. To descend into a cheesy metaphor, I guess it reminded me a little bit of heaven, like some sort of resting place for the love that Fiona cherished so deeply before she fell apart. If this movie doesn't make you terrified of Alzheimer's, you probably don't have a soul. Polley makes Grant's struggle very accessible to the audience: we see that he has spent 45 years with a personality that fills him, completes him, and now he must watch it disintegrate before his eyes. I couldn't begin to imagine what that would be like, losing an old friend or loved one to this condition. Away From Her presents the viewer with that very real possibility in an even-handed, touching way.
Fernando Rafael Q

Fantastically directed and written by young actress/filmmaker Sarah Polley (in her directorial debut), Away From Her it's a little slow paced, but it's touching and heartwarming, specially for Julie Christie (who gives an amazing performance as a woman with Alzheimer's… More
Fantastically directed and written by young actress/filmmaker Sarah Polley (in her directorial debut), Away From Her it's a little slow paced, but it's touching and heartwarming, specially for Julie Christie (who gives an amazing performance as a woman with Alzheimer's disease; and i must add that she is really beautiful, despite her 66 years of age) and Gordon Pinsent (the heartbroken husband). Kristen Thomson and Oympia Dukakis did a nice work too.
Luke B

If someone had told me that the 28 year old star of the Dawn of the Dead remake would be able to direct such a moving and emotional tale I would have slapped them in their ridiculous face. The film is quite stunning in terms of performances and screenplay and manages to avoid a story… More
If someone had told me that the 28 year old star of the Dawn of the Dead remake would be able to direct such a moving and emotional tale I would have slapped them in their ridiculous face. The film is quite stunning in terms of performances and screenplay and manages to avoid a story that very easily could have been melodramatic or even Made for TV sentimental. Heartbreakingly sad accompanied by a few laughs which help the digestion of a film that isn't overly sentimental.
Christopher M

With Away From Her we have a very fine example of Canadian filmmaking from prolific young actress Sarah Polley. She directs Julie Christie and Gorden Pinsent in an adaptation based on an Alice Munroe story. It's about the marriage of Grant & Fiona that lasts 50 years, and how… More
With Away From Her we have a very fine example of Canadian filmmaking from prolific young actress Sarah Polley. She directs Julie Christie and Gorden Pinsent in an adaptation based on an Alice Munroe story. It's about the marriage of Grant & Fiona that lasts 50 years, and how things begin to shift with Fiona being affected by Alzheimer's disease. This film is a bittersweet study of marriage and illness, old age, fidelity, among other themes. It's tender and humorous, very well written and directed. Although I thought I'd heard some people praising this film as something like the second coming, but it;s not quite that, but it is very good, and it is an immense success for Polley, who proves she has the talent to do just about anything in the film industry. This film establishes her as an great young auteur and I really look forward to what she does next be it acting or in the director's chair again. And lest I forget the wonderful performances; the leads are awesome in their roles, but Olympia Dukakis came close to stealing the show in a couple scenes as Grant's would-be mistress, Marian. She was fantastic and showed what a great actor does in a supporting role. This film reminded me why I should support the film industry of my own country more. A good achievement on all fronts.
Daniel P

A great piece of Canadian film from first-time director Sarah Polley, this movie will break your heart repeatedly over the first 40 minutes or so. After that, though, a lot of the action sends the plot madly off in all directions, and I feel like she knew she had to scale back the… More
A great piece of Canadian film from first-time director Sarah Polley, this movie will break your heart repeatedly over the first 40 minutes or so. After that, though, a lot of the action sends the plot madly off in all directions, and I feel like she knew she had to scale back the intensity (so that it would remain watchable), but that she really didn't know what to do next, and particularly, that she didn't know how to end it. A film that really corrects the popular treatment of Alzheimer's seen in The Notebook, this is a beautifully shot film that features an Academy-notice worthy Julie Christie and a stoic-as-ever Gordon Pinsent. Bonus points for local colour: not only is it filmed in Brantford, Ontario, it actually admits it and sets the story there, turning it into anytown, Canada. A very successful debut for Polley, and one of the better Canadian films I've ever seen.
Jennifer X

This is an actor's film. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent each give mesmerizing performances and inhabit their characters in such a way I was like...wow, these two have a history together. Sarah Polley guides events along in a seamless manner, letting the actors shine… More
This is an actor's film. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent each give mesmerizing performances and inhabit their characters in such a way I was like...wow, these two have a history together. Sarah Polley guides events along in a seamless manner, letting the actors shine individually while restraining these moments to make the movie more cohesive. Out of the three movies recently made about Alzheimer's (The Notebook, Iris, and this), Away From Her is by far the best. And I really dig those Canadian accents.
Nate Z

[center][img]http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7349/photo28wy1.jpg[/img] [left][font=Arial][color=DarkRed]Ghost Rider - Nicolas Cage's career has been flaming out, so what better role than a burning skeleton biker who serves as a bounty hunter for the Devil, in this case… More
[center][img]http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7349/photo28wy1.jpg[/img] [left][font=Arial][color=DarkRed]Ghost Rider - Nicolas Cage's career has been flaming out, so what better role than a burning skeleton biker who serves as a bounty hunter for the Devil, in this case Peter Fonda. A cliché-riddled script, laughable performances, cheesy effects and dull villains doom any entertainment prospects this movie might have had. Cage, as the titular rider, gets to fight a group of escaped demons who all have one connection to an element; one has the power of fire, another the power of wind, etc., it's like a hellish Captain Planet squad. But what's the point when Ghost Rider simply vanquishes them so easily? It's repetitive and goes nowhere. There's one moment Sam Elliot "turns" into an older ghost rider/bounty hunter and rides along with Cage to save the day. But then he says, "Well, I could only do that once more, so good luck." What? You could only turn into a flaming ass kicker one more time and you wasted it on riding a horsey through the desert? Eva Mendes is awful as her role of "girlfriend from past," and why, if she and Cage grew up as childhood sweethearts, does he look over 15 years older than her in the present? I guess working for Satan can really take a lot out of you. Nate's Grade: D Breach - Chris Cooper is masterful in an unnerving and deeply contradictory role as a man of God, country, patriotism, and family. He was a respected FBI expert eventually discovered to be the biggest mole in U.S. intelligence history, directly responsible for the deaths of U.S. spies and interests in Russia during the Cold War. Writer/director Billy Ray infuses the film with the same stoic, controlled calm of his exceptional earlier effort [i]Shattered Glass[/i], and the movie unwinds like a great political thriller from the 1970s. The story is smart and engaging but it is Cooper that turns [i]Breach[/i] into one of the best films of 2007. His performance is as varied and complex as the man he is portraying; frightening and intimidating but also empathetic and bound by a sense of honor, Cooper gives a performance that plays upon ambiguity and understatement. Watch the way he even drives people into walls when he walks alongside them in hallways. It's that kind of intense, highly focused, and morally challenging work that deserves an Oscar nomination. Grade: A Away from Her - Actress Sarah Polley makes a remarkable directorial/screenwriting debut telling the story of a couple going through the late stages of Alzheimer's. This is a truly adult tale that deals in the heartbreak of losing a loved one gradually and slowly. The film centers on a long-standing marriage that endures the hardships of becoming a victim in your own mind, first forgetting small things and then finally shutting down completely. While plenty of films have articulately dealt with the point of view of the afflicted, I feel [/color][/font][font=Arial][color=DarkRed][i]Away from Her[/i][/color][/font][font=Arial][color=DarkRed] is one of the better perspectives on seeing the devastating effects of the illness from the spouse. The movie deals with its real world dilemmas in a respectful and realistic manner and Polley has put herself on the map as a thoughtful, mature, and engrossing talent to watch whenever she hops behind the camera. Grade: B+ Fracture - This is a genre movie, pure and simple, but it has a tricky plot and is aided by two exceptionally high caliber performances from Anthony Hopkins, once again personifying evil and confidence, and Ryan Gosling, one of, no, THE best actor of his generation. He imbues such meaty resonance to a character that would have seemed flimsy and altogether stock in another actor's hands. Gosling and Hopkins have great tit-for-tat moments where each is trying to outwit the other, and their verbal chess match provides the best scenes in this procedural thriller. The disintegrating murder case keeps the audience guessing, but it's Hopkins and Gosling that elevate the material into delicious crackling Southern-fried entertainment. Grade: B Disturbia - This [i]Rear Window[/i] for the Myspace generation starts off strong with a solid performance by Shia LeBouf, but then quickly unravels once the filmmakers think they're desperately running out of time. The teasing mystery is set up well and elicits some interest, but then, as if afraid of lulling an audience to sleep with a story that takes its damn time, [i]Disturbia[/i] throws everything and the kitchen sink at you in the last 20 minutes. The movie falls on its face (the metaphors are flying today) trying to make up for lost time with jump scares and lame thriller conventions. The end gets a tad absurd as well as Shia discovers his serial killer neighbor isn't just a murderer, but he's a home decorator on par with the creature from [i]Jeepers Creepers[/i]. By the time Shia falls into an underground water cavern filled with corpses, I wanted to scream myself for such wasted potential to a film that seemed like a formless rip-off on the surface. Grade: C+[/color][/font] [/left] [/center]
jay n

julie christie's performance is amazing, truly oscar worthy, her co-stars are equally fine. the film is very well made but profoundly sad.
William D

[size=3]Away From Her is sometimes beautiful and razor-sharp, other times mawkish and very dull.[/size] [img]http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/binary/55bc/flicks_review1-1_01.jpg[/img] [size=3]The first 30 minutes are quite special. [b]Julie Christie[/b] gives an Oscar-worthy… More
[size=3]Away From Her is sometimes beautiful and razor-sharp, other times mawkish and very dull.[/size] [img]http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/binary/55bc/flicks_review1-1_01.jpg[/img] [size=3]The first 30 minutes are quite special. [b]Julie Christie[/b] gives an Oscar-worthy performance and proves indubitably that she is still an enormous talent despite being under-utilized in the film industry. Christie should be working at least as much as Meryl Streep. Maybe she chooses not to work very often. It's a crime that we don't get to see her talent in action more frequently.[/size] [size=3]Christie brings an extraordinary intelligence and grace to this depiction of a brainy woman losing her mind to Alzheimers. As another character in the film says at one point, It's like the circuit breakers in a very large house gradually shutting down one at a time. Watching her experience it is tragic. At a dinner party she suddenly becomes disoriented in the middle of talking. When she recovers, she realizes what has happened. "I feel like I'm slowly disappearing," she says to her guests, who are frozen in sorrow and helplessness. Perhaps it's especially heart-breaking due to the fact that this woman clearly values intelligence so highly and has done so much work to develop her mind.[/size] [size=3][/size] [img]http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/Images/MoviePics/a/awayfromher.jpg[/img] [size=3]Just as tragic is watching her husband lose his wife. Physically she's there, but mentally there's less of her each day. It gets to the point where she might as well be another person. In the end, she sometimes doesn't recognize him.[/size] [size=3]Sadly, just like the character gradually losing her intelligence, I found the film suffering from its own form of Alzheimers. It started out so sharp and magnificently realized. But gradually it gets more and more shallow. It especially goes downhill when she moves to a nursing home. It started to be a tutorial on Alzheimers, playing almost like an episode of 20/20. All we were missing was Barbara Walters offering earnest banalities as commentary.[/size] [size=3]There is an interesting subplot that emerges when the woman seems to fall in love with another resident in the nursing home. To make it more complicated, the man is someone she briefly dated in her youth. There's flirtation with the idea that she would have married him, had he been more interested in her. This obviously deepens and expands the overall theme of the relationship between the protagonists dissolving. But not much is made of it. It's just put on the table. The writing is just thin in that spot, alas.[/size] [size=3]There's another subplot surrounding the wife of the man in the nursing home. She is nicely played by [b]Olympia Dukakis[/b]. But not enough is made of that character either. I wanted to dig deep into that woman's pain and longing. But only the surface is scratched. It's certainly nice to see on screen a sixtysomething woman with her sexuality intact, but that's not enough to make a character.[/size] [size=3]The actor playing Christie's husband, [b]Gordon Pinsent[/b], is someone I've never heard of. He's extremely intelligent and his face gives new meaning to the word wizened (move over John Hurt!). But he delivers basically a one-note performance. I didn't feel that he became a real person in the end. And for him not to cry even once was quite strange to me. [/size] [size=3]The actors playing the nursing home staff were the worst of the lot. How they let hacks like that onto the set with Julie Christie is beyond me. It was painful to watch Christie read dialogue with them.[/size] [size=3]This is the first film from writer/director [b]Sarah Polley[/b], who's acted in the past, most notably in The Sweet Hereafter. She certainly has shown that she's a serious filmmaker, especially in the film's fierce and elegiac first 30 minutes. It's very bold for a young person to do a movie about old people, especially to make that your film debut. It's also brave to make the film feel so Canadian. I'm impressed with her gumption. I like her choice of material, but I'm not sure she digs very deeply or fully into the material that attracts her. I'm intrigued enough to start watching her career. She could turn into something significant. She could also turn into an assembly-line producer of predictable melodrama for the Lifetime Channel.[/size]