onetwothreefour
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2002
- Messages
- 14,382
here's a review i posted on another site. i really liked this film 
What would you do if the doctor told you he’d found as cancerous, inoperable tumour in your stomach, and you would be dead within three months? It’s an impossible question to answer really, and it’s pretty unlikely that many of us would want to go through the ordeal just to find out. So let’s leave it hypothetical.
But for Ann, the question becomes a reality. My Life Without Me is Isabel Coixet’s answer to that very question, and to me it seems a pretty fair approximation of just how it might be. In it, underrated Canadian actress Sarah Polley (of Go fame, and more recently the Dawn of the Dead remake) plays Ann, a young discontent mother of two children, living uncomfortably in a trailer (though white trash stereotypes are notably – and thankfully – absent here) behind her own mother’s house. She laments what her life has (not) become, almost as if she’s just awoken from a dream and can’t quite recall what has led her to this point. She loves her husband dearly, and her children too, but she can’t help feeling that life has somehow passed her by.
But then it all comes crashing down even further. Impending death, I think, has a strange tendency to do that. The interesting thing about this film though is to observe her reactions to news of her death. No dramatic tears or hysteria, no self-pitying or typical Hollywood pathos-provoking scenes. Instead, she is calm, reserved. She even draws up a list – “things to do before I die”.
Strangest of all, she tells nobody of the news. Not her husband, not her mother. Not her children, not even the strange guy she meets at the Laundromat (played with aplomb by another severely undervalued actor, Mark Ruffalo). Not a soul. We can only suspect that she doesn’t want the pity, and does not want to burden others with the difficulty of having to deal with the coming end.
What strikes me about this film, and with most good character-driven dramas, is just how real the characters are. Often real is just used as a synonym for frail, but here it isn’t the case. Ann is real because she is strong, but flawed. She takes too long, too late to realise that her mother (a role taken with subtle fervour by ex-Blondie singer Debbie Harry) is only trying to help ease the strain on her life, and it’s a shame that she is consigned to a life of too-long shifts, Laundromats and caravans, before it all ends prematurely. But she has consistent good intentions, and for that you have to identify with her.
Polley brings everything you could hope to the performance – and if director Coixet’s enthusiastic comments on the DVD are anything to by, the performance is exactly as imagined too. Coixet herself must receive much of the credit for this film, too. Doing much of the cinematography herself, it is heartening to see the actors so comfortable on screen, and some of the handheld photography is wonderful. Considering the scenery, it is definitely a credit to her that the film looks so fantastic – one gets the feeling that there wasn’t a hell of a lot to work with.
All in all, this is probably not the most compelling film you’ll see all year, nor is it the most insightful. But it’s solid, and it’s truthful; two qualities sadly lacking in so many films these days. So if you’re stuck for choice one night, this is a good one to depend on – at the very least you won’t be disappointed.
What would you do if the doctor told you he’d found as cancerous, inoperable tumour in your stomach, and you would be dead within three months? It’s an impossible question to answer really, and it’s pretty unlikely that many of us would want to go through the ordeal just to find out. So let’s leave it hypothetical.
But for Ann, the question becomes a reality. My Life Without Me is Isabel Coixet’s answer to that very question, and to me it seems a pretty fair approximation of just how it might be. In it, underrated Canadian actress Sarah Polley (of Go fame, and more recently the Dawn of the Dead remake) plays Ann, a young discontent mother of two children, living uncomfortably in a trailer (though white trash stereotypes are notably – and thankfully – absent here) behind her own mother’s house. She laments what her life has (not) become, almost as if she’s just awoken from a dream and can’t quite recall what has led her to this point. She loves her husband dearly, and her children too, but she can’t help feeling that life has somehow passed her by.
But then it all comes crashing down even further. Impending death, I think, has a strange tendency to do that. The interesting thing about this film though is to observe her reactions to news of her death. No dramatic tears or hysteria, no self-pitying or typical Hollywood pathos-provoking scenes. Instead, she is calm, reserved. She even draws up a list – “things to do before I die”.
Strangest of all, she tells nobody of the news. Not her husband, not her mother. Not her children, not even the strange guy she meets at the Laundromat (played with aplomb by another severely undervalued actor, Mark Ruffalo). Not a soul. We can only suspect that she doesn’t want the pity, and does not want to burden others with the difficulty of having to deal with the coming end.
What strikes me about this film, and with most good character-driven dramas, is just how real the characters are. Often real is just used as a synonym for frail, but here it isn’t the case. Ann is real because she is strong, but flawed. She takes too long, too late to realise that her mother (a role taken with subtle fervour by ex-Blondie singer Debbie Harry) is only trying to help ease the strain on her life, and it’s a shame that she is consigned to a life of too-long shifts, Laundromats and caravans, before it all ends prematurely. But she has consistent good intentions, and for that you have to identify with her.
Polley brings everything you could hope to the performance – and if director Coixet’s enthusiastic comments on the DVD are anything to by, the performance is exactly as imagined too. Coixet herself must receive much of the credit for this film, too. Doing much of the cinematography herself, it is heartening to see the actors so comfortable on screen, and some of the handheld photography is wonderful. Considering the scenery, it is definitely a credit to her that the film looks so fantastic – one gets the feeling that there wasn’t a hell of a lot to work with.
All in all, this is probably not the most compelling film you’ll see all year, nor is it the most insightful. But it’s solid, and it’s truthful; two qualities sadly lacking in so many films these days. So if you’re stuck for choice one night, this is a good one to depend on – at the very least you won’t be disappointed.