Away from Her Reviews
Suite101.com
No one dreams of the twilight transpiring in "Away From Her," but, in its words, it's not bad luck. It's just life. You can't beat life. A tenderly told tragedy about Alzheimer's Disease's erosive effects, Sarah Polley's film avoids movie-of-the-week sap.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
CinePassion
Too content with its own "maturity" and "restraint," yet it invaluably offers Christie for audiences in delicate contemplation, and chaste consummation
Slant Magazine
Sometimes extreme physical beauty grows more complex, more satisfying with age; it's rare, but it happens.
Eye for Film
Christie is brilliant as steely but brittle Fiona, a woman who knows her mind completely and yet, in the end, cannot hang on to it, while Pinsent eloquently portrays the gradual ebbing away of a partnership, as delicate and unstoppable as snow-melt.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Uruguay Total
Una bella historia de amor a merced de una enfermedad, filmada con delicadeza por Sarah Polley y sensiblemente interpretada por Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent y Olympia Dukakis.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Cinema Sight
A beautifully acted, poignant film about a man who slowly loses his wife to Alzheimer's.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Laramie Movie Scope
A complex series of relationships revolve around a nursing home romance.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
NewsBlaze
Julie Christie as an Alzheimer's afflicted wife achieves the perfect psychological mixture of despair, mystery, rebellion against the unappreciated devotion that has been her lot in married life, and an ultimate odd but eloquent personal liberation.
rec.arts.movies.reviews
Hallmark card presentation of the onset of Alzheimer's. Totally sincere and totally unrealistic.
KPBS.org
Christie (with whom Polley acted in Hal Hartley's No Such Thing) is still a radiant presence at 66 and she rivets us to the screen.
Common Sense Media
Memorable Alzheimer's drama OK for teens and up.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Window to the Movies
This is a really wrenching film, and all the better for it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
eFilmCritic.com
There's not a genuine moment to be found in this film.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Projection Booth
Something of an antithesis to the fake fuzziness of any Hallmark movie of the week.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Movie Magazine International
The strength of Away From Her rests on the laurels of an excellent director and Julie Christie whose demanding role is interpreted with subtlety, humor and wisdom. Polley said she only had Christie in mind when the film was to be cast.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Baltimore Sun
Away From Her is that rare movie that breaks hearts with finesse and reserve, not through brute force.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Apollo Guide
It's nice to see serious issues other than crime and drugs in the movies and even nicer to see a filmmaking talent like Sarah Polley blossoming.
Full Review
| Original Score: 82/100
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
If the Oscars were really looking for Best Actress, it couldn't go wrong looking this way.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lovely and cold as a Nordic winter sky, Away From Her is a lacerating, tough movie that's sometimes hard to watch - and impossible to forget
Full Review
| Original Score: 91/100
Atlantic City Weekly
Tackling a sorrowful subject with compassion and even an occasional laugh, actress Sarah Polley makes an impressive full-length debut as writer and director ...
