Life constantly rises above the mundane, mainly because there's so much that's incredibly touching and believable about Polley's character.
My Life Without Me (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:100
Fresh:65
Rotten:35
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Sarah Polley keeps this production afloat with her moving performance.
Theatrical Release:Sep 26, 2003 Limited
Box Office: $200,852
Synopsis: Ann is 23, she has 2 daughters, a husband who spends more time unemployed than working, a mother who hates the world, a father who has spent the last ten years in jail, a strange predilection for... Ann is 23, she has 2 daughters, a husband who spends more time unemployed than working, a mother who hates the world, a father who has spent the last ten years in jail, a strange predilection for the audio-books of soap operas and a job as a night janitor in a university she could never go to in the dayime. They live in a trailer on the yard of her mother’s house, on the outskirts of Vancouver. However, this gray existence changes completely when, after a medical check-up, a shy doctor tells her that she has very little time left, hardly two months to live. Ann decides to keep her condition a secret, not to tell anybody, not even her husband. She doesn't want people around her with long faces mumbling the word "death." She starts to make a list of "things to do before dying" which she completes little by little. The list goes from "saying exactly what I think" to "getting fake fingernails." Unexpectedly, Ann discovers an appetite for life that drives her to live her last days with a sensual and furious intensity she had not known before. During that time she prepares her daughters life without her, meets a solitary wounded man who she seduces (and paradoxically brings back to life), and faces what remains of her life with a courage she never knew she had. -- © Sony Pictures Classics [More]
Starring: Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, Leonor Watling
Starring: Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, Leonor Watling, Deborah Harry, Amanda Plummer, Maria De Medeiros
Director: Isabel Coixet
Director: Isabel Coixet
Screenwriter: Isabel Coixet
Producer: Esther Garcia, Gordon McLennan
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Reviews for My Life Without Me
Sarah Polley's performance is exquisite, with shades of complexity flickering across her face as she absorbs the information her doctor has given her: confusion, disbelief, then determination.
Polley wipes herself of all intelligence and beauty for the role, and almost all emotion; her lack of affect is both frustrating and somehow fitting.
Makes you think twice about what's really important in life and a movie that can do that is a movie worth seeing.
My Life Without Me thematizes the perennial problem of identifying with characters.
...pulls out all the stops to elicit the requisite emotions from the audience, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It takes considerable sleight of hand, and a certain temerity, to fashion an uplifting tale about death. Yet My Life Without Me pulls it off.
Transforming [Ann] into a woman who wants what she wants and reaches for it now, Polley not only subverts cliché but humanizes one of the most hard-heartedly malicious phrases in the American language -- trailer trash.
(...) Una de las películas más hermosas que se hayan filmado sobre eso tan extraño y tan temido que es el tiempo que queda antes de morir.
Isabel Coixet's script does not take the easy route, eschewing mawkishness and sentimentality in favor of an unexpected act of heroism and an affecting final journey of self-discovery.
My Life Without Me is a bold and honest film about a young woman who is forced to number her days and to fill them with as much pleasure and meaning as she can.
A tear-jerker where the tears are cut by more than a dash of cynicism.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 95% 95% | Star Trek |
| 14% 14% | The Ugly Truth |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 86% 86% | A Christmas Tale |
| 60% 60% | Paper Heart |
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