Synopsis
Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.
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Cast
- Gordon PinsentGrant
- Julie ChristieFiona
- Michael MurphyAubrey
- Olympia DukakisMarian
- Kristen ThomsonKristy
- Wendy CrewsonMadeleine
- Alberta WatsonDr. Fischer
- Thomas HauffWilliam Hart
- Deanna DezmariVeronica
- Nina DobrevMonica
Recommendations
- 90
Village Voice
It's a precociously assured and mature work, at once humble and bold, that keeps faith with Munro's precise, graceful prose while tailoring its linear progression into shapely cinematic form. - 88
Rolling Stone
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. - 83
Christian Science Monitor
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. - 80
Film Threat
Julie Christie gives a fabulous performance of mysterious, unclear depth as Fiona. - 80
Salon
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
The Hollywood Reporter
The pain of watching a spouse succumb to Alzheimer's is given a particularly deep and sensitive treatment in Away From Her. - 80
Variety
What Away From Her achieves is quite admirable-- a low-key, intelligent setting for performances marked by those same qualities. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
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.
