Sarah Polley's film, based on Alice Munro's short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain, is about Alzheimer's disease and the husbands, wives and children who try desperately to care for its sufferers.
It is hardly a cheerful watch. But a strong cast sweetens the pill and its obvious sincerity counteracts a slow and rather plodding exposition.
Julie Christie, who has seldom been better, plays Julie, the wife of Grant (Gordon Pinsent), who knows her mind and memory are going and bravely insists on being placed in a home that specialises in the disease.
Forced to leave her alone for 30 days so that she can adjust, Grant eventually finds Julie virtually ignoring him and totally engrossed in Aubrey (Michael Murphy), a fellow patient. But he still persists in trying to make contact.
A relationship with Aubrey's wife Marian (Olympia Dukakis) gives Grant some relief until she takes her husband back home, causing a further deterioration in Julie's condition. There is hope by the film's close, but it's hardly a feel-good ending.
Christie's performance seems totally true to Julie's circumstances, showing how small glimpses of awareness are snuffed out, little by little, by the disease.
And though Pinsent's rather doggedly drawn Grant hardly matches her, Away from Her makes its point to some purpose.
Perhaps it needs a Bergman to do such a subject full justice. But at least Polley, at 27, suggests that her first film as writer-director is unlikely to be her last.
Away From Her
Cert: 12A
