Sneak Weep Peak: AFF Presents Away From Her
We love a good cry, and we are expecting a Niagra Falls worthy Wednesday night, as Austin Film Festival brings us Away From Her, the directorial/screenwriting debut of Canadian powerhouse Sarah Polley. You may remember Polley from Dawn of the Dead, My Life Without Me and of course, the Road to Avonlea series. (Come on, we know you have the entire Anne of Green Gables spinoff on VHS right next to your NKOTB action figures.)
Polley adapted her screenplay from the short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro, a tale of an aging couple, slipping into the twighlight of their years down the slope of Alzheimer’s. Grant, a past and future philanderer, must check his cognitively deteriorating wife Fiona into a nursing home after she begins to put freshly washed frying pans in the freezer. Soon Grant is but a persistent visitor, a recognizable face, but no longer a touchstone in Fiona’s reality. With the absence of memory comes the dawning of a new life, a life that excludes not only the past of the afflicted, but abandons a future with those left behind.
Featuring Academy Award winners Julie Christie (whom Polley had to stalk for eight months to sign onto the project) and Olympia Dukakis, as well as another north of the border treasure, Gordon Pinsent, Away From Her is sure to leave you misty and mournful for a love so tender and true that you would risk having it slips through your fingers just to have and hold it for a moment. As added warning, the trailer features the song Be Here Now by master of melancholy Ray LaMontagne, a harbinger of the impending weepfest.
Austin Film Festival Presents Away From Her
Co-presented by the Alzheimer's Association, Capitol of Texas Chapter
Wednesday, May 16th
Regal Arbor Cinema
7:30pm
[Info]
[Map]
