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Filmed in Canada, Away From Her could have easily been a candidate for a TV movie of the week. Instead the drama, boasting two fantastic performances, is my vote for an early contender come awards season.

Based on a short story called "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro, Away From Her focuses on Grant, a retired teacher, who is coping with the fact that his wife, Fiona, is showing symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Every day, Grant comes to visit Fiona, hoping she will want to leave her nursing home behind. Instead, Fiona becomes attached to a fellow patient named Aubrey, a wheel-chair bound mute. Grant becomes jealous of Aubrey because Fiona only seems happy with him. Grant must figure out how to overcome this tremendous obstacle because, for him, love is all that is left.

Gordon Pinsent does a brilliant job of playing Grant ever so honestly. While Grant's world and marriage deteriorate, there is still a little glimmer in his eyes. Though difficult, he understands he can't be too hard on his wife because of her deteriorating recollection. Despite a fifty year age difference between the thespian and me, I really sympathized with the character of Grant thanks to Pinsent's engrossing performance.

Julie Christie, as always, does a fantastic job in Away From Her as Fiona. It is easy for films that feature characters with diseases or ailments to ham it up in order to draw out artificial emotions. However Christie plays Fiona with authenticity, making it easy for the audience to elicit genuine tears.

With the wild success of The Notebook, a picture that poorly touched on similar subject matter, Director Sarah Polley steers her film away from comparisons of being simply another Lifetime Channel original. Polley brings a fascinating vision to the project, creating a unique atmosphere for her characters to grow in.

Certainly an intentional aesthetic choice, Away From Her is filled with white, including everything from glistening snow to the blank walls of the nursing home. The picture even ends on a fade to white, a rather rare, yet entirely appropriate occurrence. As the atmosphere grows steadily bleaker, Polley uses Alzheimer's to measure the depths of love rather than using the disease as a manipulative device.

Polley, also a great actress (GO), is certainly a director to watch for. Like fellow female director Sofia Coppola, Polly brings a very mature approach to filmmaking while retaining an expressive feminine voice.

Away From Her is a wonderful, poetic examination of love, loss and communication. It is also one of the best feature film debuts any filmmaker could ever ask for. I can not stress enough how refined and mature this picture is. While Away From Her is obviously not the most entertaining movie of the year, if you are craving something emotionally satisfying, this is one film to remember.

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