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Spanish
filmmaker Isabel Coixet's My Life Without Me, which she
adapted from Nanci Kincaid's short story Pretending the Bed
is a Raft, is a lot like I Am Sam
in that both films feature a ridiculously hokey premise
carefully and thoughtfully made into shockingly compelling
cinema. Reactions
will probably be quite similar as well, with some viewers unable
to look past the maudlin subject matter that seems better suited
for a Lifetime Network movie-of-the-week than one of a handful
of highlights from 2003's Toronto International Film Festival.
Me
stars a dark-haired Sarah Polley (The
Claim) as Ann, a 23-year-old who seems surprisingly
happy despite having a life many would consider sad, or at least
about as far from glamorous as you might be able to get.
She has two daughters, a perpetually unemployed husband
and a job with the third-shift janitorial crew at the local
university picking up the garbage created by people of a similar
age but with much brighter futures.
Ann's immediate family is very close, though, both
literally and figuratively, as her husband Don (Scott Speedman, Underworld)
and their two kids (Jessica Amlee and Kenya Jo Kennedy) live in
a cramped trailer in her mother's backyard just outside
Vancouver.
When
Don announces he's landed a semi-long-term gig installing pools,
Ann takes a moment to reflect and says, "I've got a good
feeling about this." And anyone who heard Sharon say the
same thing at the beginning of the second season of The
Osbournes knows making such a statement is guaranteed to
turn your life upside-down.
Before you know it, Ann is doubled over in pain and is
told by a nervous hospital doctor (Julian Richings, Open
Range) that she has only a couple of months to live,
courtesy of inoperable cancer spreading faster than Internet
gossip about the third Matrix
film.
I
think a lot of people might have a hard time accepting Ann's
reaction to the diagnosis, but that's because they're programmed
to think films about people dying have to be button-pushers like
Life as a House, Sweet
November or Stepmom – the sort of mawkish
movies that take the easy way out by sticking to a boring
formula which seems intent on generating a set amount of tears
at predetermined moments. The
ones with big stars wearing lots of gray makeup hungrily leaping
at the chance to fake a dignified yet agonizing death while
secretly dreaming of an Oscar.
The ones I'm so tired of seeing.
You
won't get any of that in the Pedro Almodóvar-produced Me
because Ann decides not to tell anyone about her illness, which
eliminates virtually all self-pity from the film.
Instead, Ann calmly makes a list of things she wants to
do before she dies. Her
goals are very down to earth (unlike, say, Homer Simpson's
similar attempt) and don't include things like "Backpack
through Europe" or "Sleep with the singer from
matchbox twenty." Some
are fiercely maternal (she wants to make birthday recordings for
little Penny and Patsy for every year until they turn 18), while
others seek closure (she wants to reconcile with her jailed
father, played by Identity's
Alfred Molina). Some
are incredibly generous (she wants to find a new wife for Don),
while others are a bit selfish (she wants to make another man
fall in love with her, because Don is the only guy she's ever
kissed).
There
are a couple of clunky moments (the worst involve Maria de
Medeiros and Milli Vanilli), but Coixet's first English-language
film is blessed by Polley's best performance to date and the
recurring use of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows."
There is amazing chemistry between Polley and Speedman
(they went to high school together in real life), as well as
both actors and their on-screen children. Scenes between Polley and Windtalkers'
Mark Ruffalo (he plays Ann's romantic conquest) aren't quite are
powerful, though they're better than most films, and they also
happen to feature the best kiss and supermarket dance
sequence since Punch Drunk Love.
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