Overlooked by most Best of 2007 lists is Away From Her, a film directed by Sarah Polley who only turned 29 in January. The oversight is unfortunate. Her film reveals astounding insight for a young director, especially considering that Polley focuses on characters twice her age. Those figures are Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie) Anderson, a retired couple whose marriage is challenged by the Alzheimer's disease slowly overtaking Fiona. Filming such a subject so often leads to a Hallmark-Hall-of-Fame-like feature, those knickknacks in which the disease always heals and everyone hugs at the end. That Polley succeeds at making her protagonists fully dynamic—fallen, yet laboring to love; fixed, and by decades of routine, but trying to change—is a victory for young directors, but especially for viewers looking for a thoughtful film.
The film asks questions about a side of love often unconsidered in movies. At the outset, the couple believes they can manage the disease. They label the drawers; they walk the same routes; they rehearse their memories. But Fiona has begun to wander, aimlessly, and Grant worries as he drives the night to find her. As disease infects her mind, Fiona realizes she needs constant care, and resolves to admit herself to a nursing home. Grant resists; he wants to keep his wife at home. The conflict then becomes whether he can change, whether his love can grow to meet the distance that disease brings. Amazingly, Away From Her depicts love as letting go.
Can a man, one who has loved a woman up close for nearly 50 years, learn to love from afar? After being the participant, can one play the spectator? Grant finds a way, and while I wish he could have found another, I empathize with his need. Wanting to be known, which is different than having someone around to combat loneliness, is a human desire, one which we feel naturally and achieve rarely, often only if our relationships contain the greatest humility and, as Fiona says, the touch of grace. To me, Grant seems willing to sacrifice being known—which Fiona can offer, though not willfully, and only now and then, as the ending implies—for the chance to avoid living alone. He chooses the easier, less heroic path, but it is still not an easy one and he does not choose it lightly. And, quite possibly, if we judge him we condemn ourselves.
Polley captures her story with thoughtful and beautiful images, using bright lighting and snow covered Canadian landscapes to create visual metaphors for a memory going blank. In an early shot, the camera looks directly down at Fiona as she wanders among the tall, identical trees of a perplexing forest: as her memory fades Fiona grows as anonymous as the trees, and the work of navigating the forest parallels the difficulty of remembering.
Away From Her is a meaningful picture of profound love and perseverant humanity. Rated PG-13, it contains little profanity, no violence, and no nudity. It may move slower than an action movie, but has so much more to offer the patient viewer.
