Keywords:
High Falls Film Festival
‘My
Life Without Me’
Isabel
Coixet, Spain/Canada, 106 minutes
Little
Theatre 2-5, 4 p.m., Saturday, November 8
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.
My
Life stars a dark-haired Sarah Polley 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) 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) that she has only a couple
of months to live, courtesy of inoperable cancer spreading faster than Internet
gossip about a third Star Wars trilogy.
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 My Life 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
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 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.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2003.
