Away from Her stands in marked contrast to the summer blockbusters currently playing or about to open. The film is quiet, thoughtful and is rooted in reality. Although the subject matter of someone with Alzheimer’s is serious, the film is not grim. While there is humor, there are no cheap laughs nor easy sentimentality.

Grant and Fiona are a mature couple who have been together for forty-four years. Fiona has moments indicating momentary loss of her cognitive abilities. As that loss becomes more marked, the couple face the difficult choice of placing Fiona in a special care facility. During a dinner with another couple, Fiona mentions that she sees herself disappearing. Grant finds himself unmoored when the increasingly impaired Fiona develops a dependent relationship on another patient, Aubrey.

Sarah Polley’s film is about memory. Away from Her is punctuated at the beginning and end with Grant’s image of Fiona when they met. While acclaim for the film has rightly centered on Julie Christie as Fiona, Gordon Pinsent is masterful as Grant, the husband who discovers things about himself as he gradually loses his wife. Adapted from a story by Alice Munro, Polley wrote the screenplay with Christie in mind. It is not surprising that Polley would see Christie as a role model, as an actress Polley has primarily chosen film roles based on the quality of the work or the reputation of the director, much as Christie has done. Atom Egoyan, who directed Polley in The Sweet Hereafter, served as Executive Producer on the film. That Polley’s feature debut bears some resemblance in style and theme to Egoyan’s is not surprising.

Julie Christie remains a magisterial screen presence. Even when she is silent, one can still sense the acting of a woman who is aware that she has forgotten much of her life. That sense of emotional isolation is reinforced by the settings in snowy, rural Ontario. The twenty-eight year old Polley choosing to make a film about older people immediately places her in a different plane from her peers who often seem desperate to display increasingly manufactured concepts of trendiness. Away from Her will primarily appeal to an adult audience, and those who appreciate a film that engages the brain as well as they eye.