Customer Reviews

My Life Without Me

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This 2003 film is a sad and sweet story of a young woman who has just two months to live. Sarah Polley is wonderful in this role and, in spite of a somewhat sentimental story, makes her character believable and real. She's only 23 years old, lives in a trailer with her husband and two young daughters, and works nights cleaning at the local university. Their marriage is happy, the children adorable.

The doctor who gives her the news, played by Julian Richings has one of the most memorable and homely faces I have ever seen. He, himself, is saddened and finds it hard to look her straight in the eye. He alone keeps her secret and agrees to hold on to some tapes she makes to be given to her loved ones after she dies.

Her "to do" list is unique. Even though she loves her husband, she wants to know what it would be like to sleep with another man and have him fall in love with her. She does that with Mark Ruffalo, a gentle and lonely man she meets in a laundromat. She also goes to visit her father who is in jail and they have a poignant scene together. Deborah Harry plays her bitter mother who's lived a life of disappointments but loves her daughter and grandchildren.

One of the beauties of the story is that this young woman manages to tie up all the details of her young life in a practical, efficient way - even going so far as to find a future wife for her husband. Her choices are hers alone and she handles them with courage. Basically, the story is a soap opera and usually I don't like those kind of films. But this film was done so well that I relaxed, got into it and found myself appreciating my own life even more.

This is not a perfect film and it's not for everybody. But I liked it. Recommended.

Sarah Polley ("Exotica", "Go") plays Anne, a 23 year old, poor rural housewife with two young daughters. She has a completely unselfish manner, until she discovers she has only a few months to live. Anne decides to keep this a secret from everyone, including her husband played by Scott Speedman ("Underworld", "Duets") and her long suffering Mom played by Deborah Harry. Drafting a note, Anne lists ten things she is determined to do before she dies. These include telling her daughters she loves them everyday, leaving cassettes for both daughters birthdays until they are eighteen and also having sex with one other man. That man is well played by Mark Ruffalo ("In The Cut', "The Last Castle") who falls hopelessly in love with Anne. The story is simple, yet the acting is true and lacks any soppiness. It almost feels like everyone is holding back their feelings and that makes for good tension. There are many surprises for all before the end of the film and although it may not be an upbeat tale, it satisfies without leaving the viewer cheapened - only somewhat enlightened.

This is a Spanish/Canadian film starring ever-wonderful Sarah Polley as Ann, terminally-ill young mother living in a trailer house with her two small girls, Penny and Patsy. But don't worry about its apparently serious theme; the film is filled with lyrical, and even quirky atomosphere well handled by Spanish director Isabel Coixet.

Ann is working night-shift at university in Vancouver, and has a two cute girls to raise. Her husband Don (Scott Speedman) is out of work, but luckily is likely to get a job at the swimming pool construction.

But one day, Ann realizes that she is going to die within two months, maybe three. Then she decides to list ten things she should do before dying, which go as follows:

1) Tell my daughters I love them several times a day.
2) Find Don a new wife who the girls like.
3) Record birthday messages for the girls for every year until they're 18.
4) Go to Whalebay Beach together and have a big picnick.
5) Smoke and drink as much as I want....

You should see the remaining five for yourself.

The film does not follow her action of doing them one by one. Instead, it shows how she comes to see and accept the inevitable fact -- "My Life without Me." She meets a new boy, book-loving Lee (Mark Ruffalo), and a new next-door neighbor namesake Ann (Lennor Watling, the sleeping beauty in "Talk to Her").

You don't expect "My Life." The heroine's emotional change is sometimes very subtle, apparently difficult to find. However, just because of this delicate and rounded characterization, we start to care these people tenderly depicted in the film. The story is almost non-existent; what you see is Ann gradually fading away (or preparing for that) without telling the fact that she is ill. This setting is a bit forced, but still intriguing enough.

And its quirky humor. Director Isabel Coixet once gave us little-seen (but charming) film "Things I Never Told You" in which slight things make us smile. But I have to tell you that "My Life without Me" gives that kind of "little smile" when the film is very poignant. See one of the little girls say during the dinner about Ann's co-worker (Amanda Plummer). You either find it funny, or very cruel.

Though I must say not everything succeeds (especially some of the dialogues and long monologues looks out of place). But for all its familar and potentially dismal theme, the film keeps on engaging, largely thanks to Sarah Polly's credible performance. If you liked her in "Sweet Hereafter," this is for you.

About guest stars. You can see Maria de Medeiros ("Pulp Fiction") as the Hairdresser, and a bit of her dancing. Alfred Molina ("Chocola") and Deborah Harry also appear as Ann's parents. The film is co-produced by Pedro Almodovar. And certainly the subject matter is what he is likely to cherish.

The film touched my life in a unique way. It made me stop and think about when the last time I told my family I loved them was. It made me think about what I would do if I knew I was dying within 2 months. And it made me wonder why the heck I wasn't doing those things. Watch this movie, then get out and live your life.

Sarah Polley. Mark Ruffalo. Here we have two of the most talented, interesting actors at work in film today. In My Life Without Me they have a script and a director and each other to stretch with and the results are provocative and moving. From the first few moments of this artfully photographed archive of the last days of a life, I knew I was in for a treat. But nothing can prepare you for the powerful treatment of loss and grief which Polley's seemingly effortless portrayal of a doomed twenty-three year-old mother of two provides. There are actors who compel empathy in their audience simply by being so deeply immersed in character that states of emotional upheaval are communicated as if by telepathy. Polley has the gift. Whatever part she takes on she inhabits completely. Brilliant acting aside, I thought the narrative structure of My Life Without Me was quirky, full of surprise and never maudlin. Polley comments at one point in an unusually insightful voiceover about her fate that 'no one thinks about death in a supermarket.' This film exists precisely for those who would like nothing better than to spend a few hours thinking about the inevitable transition into oblivion. And about the legacy one would like to leave behind for those whom we love.

I just saw this film today, and I know that it'll be with me for a long while. I agree with the previous review - there's a lot that in other films you'd take as manipulative or obvious - but here it works wonderfully and powerfully. I feel like I know the characters and I was drawn into their world and where they are in life. I feel heartbroken that Ann won't grow to see her daughters flourish, won't be able to share her life and love with the people around her. It's a film about life, about feeling, and about dreaming. The first 30 seconds alone blew me away - Anne standing in the rain, feeling it, sensing it, hearing it. Thinking to herself, 'So here I am, standing in the rain' and soaking up every single tiny, magical moment of it. I feel human from watching it. I'm 'one of the people who like to look up at the moon' - and I'm buying this DVD when the shops open tomorrow.

Twenty-three year old Anne who is a loving mother and doting young wife, finds out that she is dying and everything around her slows down literally and metaphorically. Like most people when faced with a few months to live, she takes stock of what she has and wants to happen before her death. For her, this includes scribing a list of 10 things she must do before she dies, most of which pertain to her two young daughters whom she begins to see as growing up in this crazy world without her love and guidance. Anne, however, makes a choice early on, that she will not tell anyone, including her generally clueless husband, that these are her last days. The moral dillema is whether or not she is being selfish or whether she is sparing them the pain of having to watch and feel her slip away from them.

I've seen plenty of 'death' films, but this is one where you can relate to the struggle of the character to keep it together for herself and her patchwork family without feeling an overwhelming sense of pity towards her. Yes, dying is a painful part of life, yes those strong emotions bubble to the surface, but it is not forced. I did not feel like there were any intentional scenes in this film put in because it was someones idea of how someone should die; the film, instead, seems very natural and without reserve. If anything, it teaches, not preaches, that we should value what we have or go after what it is we don't have in life, because when its gone, its gone.

Clearly, the decision of Sarah Polley's character to sleep with another man before she dies, and make him fall in love with her, is troubling to many viewers. But why is that? She tells us that she married the first man she ever kissed. Now she's about to die at 23, and she wants to know what it would be like with another man. Can absolutely no one understand that????

If she were a young man in that situation instead of a woman, I'll bet no one would be troubled by it, so I think this is the old double standard at work. Surely she is not a "slut," as one reviewer calls her, for wanting that kind of intimacy with someone other than her husband. It is clear that she loves him, too, so this is not an affair brought on by an unhappy marriage.

Many reviewers seem to agree that Ann is selfish by keeping the news of her terminal illness secret. I thought so too, until she explains why she is doing it while making one of her tape recordings. She knows that as soon as she tells her secret, everything will change. Nobody will ever look at her the same again, and her loved ones will spend months consumed by anger, grief, misery, regret, false hope. Her bombshell will be the ground zero of a new, sadder reality for everyone. Is it so wrong to want to keep things the way they are for a little while longer?

She is denying herself the opportunity to be the complete focus of attention from everyone she loves, and bask in their comfort. I'd call that selfless, not selfish. Besides, although the movie does not show her death scene, one can assume that in the final few weeks the truth will come out, so her loved ones WILL have a chance, however brief, to say their last goodbyes. And maybe thank her for sparing them from what could have been months of agony.

Too bad about that boneheaded Siamese twin goof. It is shocking that a mistake like that would not get caught.

A movie I was reluctant to rent, but for some reason thought... why the hell not. I was glad I did.

What would I do if I found out that my life was over even before I had begun to live? This is the question that comes to the front of my mind after watching "My Life Without Me". It makes us aware that we walk a fine line between living and the devastating routine of life. It also makes you think twice about what's really important in life - any movie that can do that is worth seeing. This movie being perhaps one of the best films I have seen in a while. A film of tragedy that didn't dwell on the process of dying, but on the process of preparing the people you love to live on without you. It was done so well that I relaxed and found myself appreciating my own life even more. The visuals at the end of the film depicting ones life fluidly continuing on without you as if it were somewhat normal are just... it's something that can't be expressed with words. Heartbreaking, to say the least. You'll need kleenex, I did.

Sometimes I think people feel that they need to give a lengthy play by play about the movie including all the technical aspects of the film in their review. But, if you don't want to read about the entire movie before you watch it then this is for you. The movie was simply amazing. It was full of love, humor, cold harsh reality, and sadness. It conveys some seriously thought provoking messages and I'm always disappointed that great meaningful movies such as this one never make it to the masses and only are made known by our word of mouth. So spread the word, give it a shot, because if you enjoy movies, you'll love My Life Without Me.