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MY LIFE WITHOUT ME Send This Review to a Friend
Unlike maudlin films in which the plight of a dying heroine is milked for all the tears that can be shed, "My Life Without Me," among the films in the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival, glorifies a woman who staunchly goes about dying with an agenda that she doggedly follows. The interesting, offbeat approach is that she selfishly decides to do what she wants without telling anyone of her plight. She makes recorded messages to leave for her husband, children and mother. There's also one for her lover, and that further distinguishes the story, for this is a dying young woman who, having married early without having had a chance to play the field, decides she wants to sleep with someone else before she departs. This falls into the category of what they used to call a woman's picture, but with a fresh twist.
Sarah Polley gives a sympathetically narcissistic performance as 23-year-old Ann, who lives with her husband and children in a trailer in the backyard of her mother (Deborah Harry), with whom she argues a lot. Her mother is disgruntled about life's disappointments. Ann's father has been in prison for ten years, and Ann wants to visit him before she dies. With Ann's husband often unemployed, Ann has been working as a janitor in a university. Her world is drab enough, but when she suddenly collapses and goes for a checkup, she gets the grim news. She has cancer that has spread and that leaves her with only a few months to live. The doctor can barely tell her.
Instead of sharing the fate with her family, Ann decides to live as fully as she can and makes a checklist of things she wants to do. The desire to sleep with someone is facilitated when she meets the kindly Lee at a laundry. Mark Ruffalo plays him like a love-sick puppy. He is smitten with Ann and they develop a tender relationship that includes sharing mind as well as body. Meanwhile, Ann is also bent on finding a woman to take her place with her husband after she is gone. Quite busy, this doomed young gal.
One would think she would be sicker than she looks and acts, but Ann proceeds with her plans. There's not a sign of guilt at having an affair. She feels that she owes herself the experience, and as it turns out, she seems to have more rapport with Lee than with her husband, whom she also loves.
The decision to enjoy what she can for herself is what drives the film, written and directed by Isabel Coixet and based on Nanci Kincaid's story "Pretending the Bed is a Raft." The portrait is of a woman determined to be in complete control of her life, short as it may be. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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