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Sunday, 18 July 2004 |
  Ann (Sarah Polley) is a 23 year old woman with a husband and two young daughters. At 17 she became pregnant, got married and now lives in a trailer behind her mother's (Deborah Harry) house. Her husband, Don (Scott Speedman) is loving and committed, if not particularly ambitious. They are good, responsible, caring parents and have an unusually strong marriage. Time after time, there are small incidents which, in almost any other movie, would lead to an irrational argument, but between these two, life moves on with barely a hitch. Ann and Don may not be particularly successful in the most obvious and tangible ways, but where it really counts, where many people fail miserably, they are both completely successful.
One morning, after the rest of the family has left, Ann experiences severe pains and doubles over on the floor. Thinking she is pregnant, she goes to the hospital, discovering she has terminal ovarian cancer and has only two or three months to live. After just a few moments of sadness (in a wonderfully subtle display of emotion by Polley) Ann accepts her fate and begins deciding the rather unusual path she will take in her final days. This is where the ire of so many viewers begins.
Ann tells nobody of her condition, saying she is a just a little anemic. That night, she sits in a diner and makes up a list of things to do before she dies. These range from telling her daughters she loves them every day, to finding a new wife for Don. They also include items like sleeping with another man to see what it's like and making someone fall in love with her. Some items, like saying what she really thinks, last about as long as it takes her to write them down. Most others, it seems, she manages to accomplish, sometimes possibly to her regret.
Ann meets Lee (Mark Ruffalo) at a laundromat, and eventually begins a relationship with him, fulfilling some of her goals which may, or may not end up being regrettable. A new next door neighbor, also named Ann (Leonor Watling) seems like a perfect candidate as a new wife for Don. Finally, Ann dreams of the result of all the items on her list.
My Life Without Me wonderfully ends before the actual end of the story. The most unpleasant aspect, the ugly reality, is left to the viewer to imagine or discard. Is Ann able to keep her secret until the end? In reality, that is probably not practical or possible, but showing that could destroy what is actually her very loving intentions and understandable desires. Ann is a woman who has found herself in an unpleasant situation, but has handled it without the slightest complaint. She is someone who learns she will die without ever having quite lived. She not only wants to experience a little of what she has missed in life, but to enable, in her unusual way, the ones she loves to move on without her as easily as possible.
One of the most interesting aspects of movies, for me, is seeing how different people react to them. My Life Without Me has received some of the most vicious and undeserved criticism of any movie to come out in years. The more this criticism is explained, the more it seems to show how the movie was misunderstood. One of the most interesting and oddly selfless characters in recent history is often viewed as cruel and self obsessed. Her many good traits and actions are completely overlooked in order to unfairly magnify and misinterpret her more curious ones.
In the end, I can understand why so many people actually seem to be threatened by what the main character does in My Life Without Me, particularly since it portrays a person dealing with tragedy in a way that is not viewed as acceptable in society or in movies. So often, unconventional behavior, no matter how reasonable it may be, is attacked merely as a reflex. Understandable actions are labeled as "selfish" when the real selfishness is in the individuals making the accusation.
My Life Without Me is a Verité style film, so it trades the dramatic approach which would be expected for this type of story for a more distant, less emotional one. Some viewers may be surprised that it does not intentionally present Ann as an obviously sympathetic character. She is left to be judged strictly by her actions. In fact, the distance put between the viewer and Ann may seem to like an indictment of her, but nothing could be further from the intended result. Director Isabel Coixet has simply decided to let Ann stand on her own two feet, without any overtly manipulative sentiment.
Starring: Sarah Polley, Amanda Plummer, Scott Speedman, Leonor Watling, Deborah Harry, Maria de Madeiros, Mark Ruffalo.
Director: Isabelle Coixet
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Rated: R
Running Time: 116 minutes
Release: 2003
Reviewer: John Rice |
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