Premise: A husband sends his wife, suffering from Alzheimer’s, to a nursing home which, to his disappointment, greatly rushes her inability to remember him.
This movie is a kick in the balls. Director Sarah Polley is good at that. Her other two feature films, Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell, are painfully bittersweet in similar ways. It's on me for not being more prepared for it. I knew this movie was about Fiona (Julie Christie) as a wife with Alzheimer's. I knew Grant (Gordon Pinsent) was the husband having trouble letting her go when they agree to have her move to a nursing home. I knew it would be about him watching as she slowly forgot him. What I wasn't prepared for was that in her confused state, she would fall for another man in the home. It's not a malicious act. Her mind is just failing her and it's the easiest thing for her to grasp onto.
This movie refuses to take any easy ways out or shortcuts. It would be so easy to include a scene in the middle of the movie where Julie Christie has a good day and remembers Pinsent. That would've given him the hope he badly needed. No, the movie waits until the end, after nearly 2 hours of emotional torture before giving him even a sliver of hope. It's a beautiful movie that I'm sure I'll appreciate more with time. It's incredible that a then 27-year-old Polley had such a firm understanding of those feelings of aging and loss. I figured she lost a grandparent to Alzheimer's but that doesn't appear to be the case. She just understood. This is one of the more impressive [feature] directorial debuts I can think of. Christie is magnificent in showing that decline. Pincent has the harder role to impress people with. He's mostly just sad all the time and has to quietly express it on his face. It's no less impressive than Christie's work, but I get why it didn't get the same awards attention. This is certainly on my list of movies that I like and respect yet I'm in no hurry to ever see it again.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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