Away from Her

This weekend, I watched "Away from Her", a movie based on Alice Munro's "The Bear Came over the Mountain". It's one of my favorite stories, a story of true love - Grant takes his wife Fiona, who has Alzheimers, to a home. Fiona falls in love with another man there, and Grant still visits her, giving her space and waiting. It's a sad but beautiful story.

The movie was... It's always hard to watch something where you already imagined the characters in one way. I felt the actor choices were good, and the acting was superb throughout. I had imagined Grant a bit younger, Marian more worn-out but flashier, Kristy blonder. But all of these actors brought the characters to life; Gordon Pinsent's Grant was charming and loving but sad, Olympia Dukakis' Marian experienced and weary, yet hopeful. I particularly liked Kristen Thomson's Kristy, who was caring but down-to-earth. She was depicted, faithfully to the story, as someone who truly empathizes with Grant. They hadn't beautified Kristy, and she was allowed to be plain but kind, someone who grew throughout the story. Julie Christie as Fiona was particularly well suited, and she shows the nuances of Fiona's illness in a way that I found deeply touching. She's a bit lost, not herself, and then we see glimpses of who she was, and she nails the "sweet and ironic" nature of Fiona.

I felt the beginning of the movie was not a success. There were too many things happening, and I was a bit confused, even if I know the story. The short story is not confusing, and it doesn't operate on a frame-within-frame structure. It tells us the story, with some flashbacks, fairly chronologically.  There's no point in showing Grant driving to Marian's house - and Fiona skiing and getting lost - and Grant driving again - and Grant and Fiona - and Grant saying hello to Marian, and so forth. It felt too gimmicky and pointless. The story isn't meant to be gimmicky. When the movie got going however, this was abandoned and there was a calm and clarity in the narration. The mood was calm, gloomy yet somewhat hopeful, beautiful. I was able to enjoy the film.

There were no omissions that I can see, just many additions. I'm not sure if they were necessary. Did we need to see so many scenes of Fiona forgetting things? The beginning in the book is fairly fast; there is no dwelling on how Fiona deteriorates, just some examples. I felt the movie tried too hard to give us backstory. The best lines were directly from the book, even if I liked "When did we last wash that sweater?" "Right after the war", and some other cute moments. There were many excerpts from books about Alzheimer's, some of which worked quite well - the lights going out scene - but perhaps there were too many. What I really liked was the scene where Grant reads to Fiona from "Letters from Iceland". That was a beautiful and poignant scene. I also liked that Fiona and Grant had sex in her room before he left. That was a tender moment between them, the last one in a long while.

I hated the scene where Grant tells Kristy that she doesn't think much of his suffering, and Kristy gets offended and tells him he must have cheated on his wife. There's a judgement there that doesn't fit in with Munro. Munro writes about adultery all the time. She writes about men cheating women, women cheating men; she writes from the viewpoint of cheater and cheatee. People get divorces, have affairs, leave each other and marry someone else without warning. I always felt the tone was "this is life, this is how we are". I never felt she judged her characters for doing that. By having Kristy judge Grant, I felt Sarah Polley was showing her own views. It's not something that arises from the story, at least for me. I had a feeling Polley wanted to judge Grant for what he had done, to punish him. Also, in the book, Grant never told Kristy that Fiona might be punishing him.

I'm also not happy with the choice of having Fiona tell Grant about all the girls he had - in the book, Grant thinks of it himself, and it's never brought up in their dialogue. Here, again, I felt Polley was judging Grant and trying to show the pain that Fiona felt being cheated on - and perhaps juxtaposing with the pain Grant would feel. I felt it was a bit too blunt, like being hit with an anvil. Munro doesn't do this kind of thing. What I would have liked to see was the dream sequence in the story, where Grant sees himself lecturing to a hall full of black-clad, angry women. It would have been a way of showing his guilt without having Fiona spell it out.

The scene I felt was most ill-fitting was Grant's "I'm more than aware of your fucking policies." I feel like we didn't need that. It was obvious - a broken heart, a cold bureaucrat. This is movie fare. It takes away from the intensity of the emotion if you spell everything out.

An addition I did like was having Grant talk to a teenager, who sympathizes with him and admires his love for Fiona. This scene isn't in the book, and is not strictly necessary, but I felt it was tender and beautiful. It was nice to see Grant appreciating a young person and vice versa; there was no pegging of old vs. young people, as there wasn't in the original story.

The movie resolves the story by having Fiona remember and love Grant again, and having Grant sleep with Marian. These things never happen in the book; they are alluded to but not spelled out. I felt Polley could have left the ending as it was. Grant hugging Fiona with the music swelling up was a bit too melodramatic, although it did lift the viewer's spirits after all the sad scenes of loss. But in the end, do we need our spirits lifted? The ending of the story, if you think further on in years, is obvious: Fiona will lose herself to Alzheimer's, and Grant will have to live without her. But maybe ending on a hopeful note is a good thing, movie-wise. I'm slightly torn about this, because it left me feeling better than a sad ending would have.

All in all, I felt the movie was successful in showing Fiona and Grant and delivering their beautiful but sad story. The spirit of the story, if not always the letter, was followed beautifully. Overall, the film would have benefited from some subtlety, and from being shorter, but it was still elevated from the ordinary film to a more lasting experience. I don't know if it's Munro's original quotes, or the actors, or the "Letters from Iceland", but there was something beautiful about this film that wasn't fabricated for the romantic movie audience. It was just.. life beauty. For that, I need to commend Sarah Polley. She was able to adapt this story, which must be a momentous effort, given the rich world and nuance in Munro's fiction.