Away from Her
Away from Her (2006) is a superior film, but it left me with some critical questions. The serious and thought-provoking theme is supported by solid acting. While Julie Christy, as the wife with Alzheimer’s (Fiona), was nominated for an Oscar, and while Gordon Pinsent, as her distraught husband (Grant), won an ACTRA for Outstanding Performance, I thought the best work came from Kristen Thomson, the nurse at the Alzheimer’s facility. In contrast to a woman whose deteriorating mind makes her distant, a husband who is trying to be stoical, and an unemotional administrator who keeps an Alzheimer’s institution running efficiently, Thomson’s nurse is full of life—warm, concerned, a little troubled, a little pushy—quite a complex character for so little time on screen.
Thomson’s character brings up a sub-theme which left me asking whether Grant got a fair shake. When Fiona entered an Alzheimer’s facility, Grant was forbidden to visit for 30 days so that Fiona could settle in. She fell in love with one of the other patients and apparently forgot who her legal husband was. In a short story written by a woman (Alice Munro) and turned into a movie by a woman (Sarah Polley), a female nurse (Thomson) says that Fiona may have been driven into the arms of another man by something Grant did in the past. The nurse says that men, such as Grant, often say their marriages have been very good but the wives disagree. But it may not be too late for Grant to make amends and become a better man. That’s it. No more details. Is this consistent with the rest of the movie? We have seen Grant nothing but happy with his wife and then terribly distraught as she loses her memory. He is the one reluctant to “put her in a home”; he says he never wanted to be away from her. When his wife falls in love with Aubrey, a man who come in and goes out of the home on an irregular basis, Grant is pleased to see his wife’s happiness when Aubrey is there, and quick to try to get Aubrey back when he sees how depressed his wife has become without Aubrey. As the punk girl visiting the home says to Grant, “I should be so lucky [to have a guy like you]!” Is Grant given a fair trial? And, turning to real life, is what the nurse says true? Or is it more likely that about half the men say their married life was pretty fine, and their wives sort of disagree, and about half the women say their married life was pretty fine, and their husbands have doubts about it?
The movie portrays unflinchingly the issues of Alzheimer’s, and makes them more powerful by expanding the concerns to life in general. But what do we make of the movie’s answer? Grant and Aubrey’s wife Marian (Olivia Dukakis) slowly and awkwardly get together. Grant is not really getting with the program, so, while driving down the highway, Marian says that life always hits us with the unexpected, and we can either remain angry about it or we can decide to choose happy. This seems to inform the last part of the movie. But is this a pretty good philosophy of life, or does it fit much better for advanced Alzheimer’s (for example, your spouse does not even know who you are) than it does for most other situations?