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Away from Her

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Canada, United Kingdom, United States · 2007
Rated PG-13 · 1h 50m
Director Sarah Polley
Starring Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis
Genre Drama, Romance

After being married for almost 50 years, Fiona and Grant find their commitment to each other tested by Fiona's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. After she checks in to a nursing home, she gets close to wheel chair-bound Aubrey, a fellow resident. Jealous and hurt, Grant begins to rely on Aubrey's wife after Fiona suffers a crisis.

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What are people saying?

Lily Bradfield Profile picture for Lily Bradfield

Based on the truly lovely and heartbreaking short story by Alice Munro, this film brings her bittersweet work to life. Grant's complicated character paired with the pain of watching a loved one succumb to such a devastating illness makes for such an interesting and fraught dynamic. Absolutely read the short story that accompanies the film!

What are critics saying?

80

The Hollywood Reporter by

The pain of watching a spouse succumb to Alzheimer's is given a particularly deep and sensitive treatment in Away From Her.

80

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

Polley captures the brisk, cheerful fascism of nursing-home existence with merciless clarity; if you've visited a parent or grandparent in one of those places, you may want to laugh and cry in the same moment.

80

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Away From Her is a twilight-of-life love story, one that harshly demolishes our romantic notions of love and loyalty, then replaces them with something deeper and, finally, more consoling.

80

Variety by Dennis Harvey

What Away From Her achieves is quite admirable-- a low-key, intelligent setting for performances marked by those same qualities.

60

Empire by Olly Richards

It's Sarah Polley through and through: slightly too glum for its own good, but reeking of quality and feeling.

83

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

Given the subject, the movie is too romanticized, and Christie's eyes remain too sharp here to convincingly convey someone whose memory is fast slipping away. Much of it is powerful anyway.

88

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

All the acting is first-rate -- Dukakis gives major dimensions to a supporting role. And Christie, a Sixties screen goddess in "Darling" and "Doctor Zhivago," shows that her spirit and grace are eternal. She's a beauty. So is the movie.

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