Yes, Away from Her is about Alzheimers. To my mind it’s the best of a growing number of films on this scourge of life’s second half[1]  But it and the story on which it is based, Alice Munro’s The Bear Came over the Mountain, are about so much more than that. Star Julie Christie (66 when the film was made) may have put it best in her rambling, deeply personal commentary.

“The film is not primarily a love story; nor is it primarily about Alzheimer’s . Life isn’t primarily about anything. But the film does speak honestly about the three stages of a relationship: the first when everything is marvelous, mad and transcendent, later when it’s about deep, deep appreciation and fun, the joy of everyday living and later still when the blow comes that takes it all away.”

Perhaps this is why, as one reviewer put it, Away from Her “defies the rule that films about aging characters mean death at the box office[2]. I suspect that he is using “death” literally as well as figuratively because boomers and just about everyone under fifty continue to think of life from the perspective of its final years as inevitably negative and depressing, all about the time when the blow comes, and therefore indistinguishable from death. Why then should they think about it,  let alone go to movies that make them experience it.

But, Away from Her  grossed close to $16,000,000[3], received a 95% approval rating from critics everywhere, swept the Genie awards in Canada and was honored by film festivals and nominating committees all over the U.S. so it’s difficult but crucial  message did apparently get through to a surprising number of serious  movie goers.

When I first showed it to a select group of elders, three of the six left the room before it was over, and the other three stayed behind for what may have been the best discussion, certainly the most heartfelt and appreciative one, that I have had at this particular venue. They began by suggesting that “Perhaps the others felt that the “subject was too close to home.”

Its writer and director, 28 year old Canadian actress, Sarah Polley, making an astonishing debut in both roles, is both remarkably respectful of Munro’s story, using most of its dialogue verbatim, and courageous enough to pursue its hints and suggestions a bit further than Munro could or would in such a short form.

The basic story line is the same in both. Grant and Fiona, married nearly fifty years and living in the country, are a close, loving, and active couple until Fiona begins to forget things and wander off into the woods alone. When she gets worse, they study up on Alzhemiers and she is the one who decides that she should move to Meadowlake, a nearby rest home. They have a thirty day no visit policy so new residents can settle in, and when that period is over, Fiona seems to have all but forgotten Grant and started an apparently innocent but all consuming relationship with Aubrey, a patient further gone than she. This is extremely hard for Grant to bear; He is, after all, away from her and now she is also away from him. Eventually he strikes up a relationship with Aubrey’s wife Marian and the plot thickens.

But the differences between the story and the film are more significant. In the story, Munro is merciless or shall we say completely honest. in her treatment of all the characters, but she is particularly harsh with Grant, the only character whose consciousness is dramatized. He has wandered and is admittedly manipulative when it comes to women. At story’s end, he imagines how he will get Marian, Aubrey’s wife, to bring him back to Meadowlake so that Fiona can snap out of her funk and return to him. But we are never told just how manipulative he has been, for we cut from his decision to return Marian’s phone call to his arrival at Fiona’s room with Aubrey waiting in the hall. What ensues is then exactly like the film’s final scene—suddenly and unexpectedly, Fiona seems to have returned to him, can’t remember Aubrey’s name and thanks Grant for being such a good and faithful husband. “You could have just driven away without a care in the world and forsook me. Forsooken me. Forsaken.”

For Munro this final twist is both ambiguous and ironic, suggesting, as does the story’s title, that Grant the bear’s trip over the mountain hasn’t been so devastating or life altering after all, for all he has found is “the other side of the mountain” and more of the same, a relationship in which he can’t help but wander at times, but one in which he always returns to his wife in the end. For Fiona, who has reminded him of these betrayals on their way to Meadowlake for the first time, their love remains solid enough to withstand all these blows, not just his infidelities and lapses of attention but her own Alzheimers as well. And yet there is that final irony—he is at in again even as she speaks. But has he done it just to regain access to her? We’ll never know, and that’s exactly what Munro wants—a story that seems to imply that in long term relationships even Alzheimers can not interrupt the patterns which the lovers have established for staying together and maintaining their love—for better or for worse.

But the film, because it has purposely filled in the blanks about the actual relationship between Marian and Grant, makes this same ending something else altogether. Marian, played brilliantly by Olympia Dukakis, has become a fully developed character and one who complicates and deepens the meaning of the whole story. She is well aware that Grant is manipulating her, but she lets him do it, asking only that he pretend to care a bit more realistically—which he does. Then in the ride that precedes their going to bed together, she shares “her philosophy of life.” There are two kinds of people: those who get angry about the rotten hand that live inevitably deals us, and those who get over it.

And, as she tells Grant, she has been mad long enough. It is time to get over it.

This last pronouncement is in fact a perfect gloss on the film’s final scene. Marian has sold her house and is clearly moving in with Grant, and Aubrey, thanks to the extra money, is now free to return to Meadowlake for good. In short what started as one of life’s cruelest and least predictable blows has turned out to have its bright side. Aubrey and Fiona have become a couple, just right for each other, as Fiona has earlier told Grant, because they don’t confuse each other, and Grant and Marian have become a couple, happy to have one another and better caregivers as a consequence.

If this sounds too good to be true, it is. and Marian knows it. It’s a kind of fairy tale in which all loose ends are tied up and all the characters maintain or regain a measure of control over their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. This, of course, is also the way we all want –and expect—life to turn out even though we should and do know better.

That’s why Fiona’s behavior in the final scene seems so perfect and appropriate. It reminds us that we are all, as K.D. Lang croons over the final titles, “Helpless, Helpless, Helpless.”

Why then is this a story that more of us should have the courage to read, watch, and learn from? Because it tells the truth. Again, as Julie Christie puts it in her commentary, “Life is a tough ride.” Fiona knew that even before she contracted Alzheimers thanks to Grant’s infidelities. Now Grant does too. All his manipulations, even if he has done them in part for her, have put him in a real pickle—Aubrey’s in the hall, and Marian is waiting for him at home. But he once again swears his allegiance to Fiona even though the nurse had earlier told him that sometime patients return to normal—but only briefly

And Marian too has been brought up short again, even though she has learned to take things as they come, the good as well as the bad. But both have finally learned what may be the most important lesson that aging teaches us—about relationships, about ourselves, and about life in general. Things never turn out the way we want them too, and even though anger and disappointment are perfectly understandable, we need to get past them and get on with our lives.

Are we better off for knowing this sooner rather than later? I think so, but there are, of course, many who do not—the ones who wouldn’t be caught dead at this movie, or, if they are, will choose to maintain their illusions and walk out.

 

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