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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 26 April 2007

Moving return to form for golden girl Christie

AWAY FROM HER
Directed by Sarah Polley
Certificate 12a

JULIE Christie. The name alone is likely to have audiences of a certain age joining the queue, either through nostalgia or curiosity.
She was the golden girl of British movies, who won an Oscar in John Schlesinger’s biting drama Darling in 1965, virtually dropped out of the spotlight for 20 years, and ended up in a remote farm in Wales.
But now she is back, and her surprise appearance in this poignant weepie has to be one of the most demanding roles of her life.
She is 65 now, but the years have been kind. Her blue eyes have an ethereal glow, and her luminous beauty still reflects a love affair with the camera as it lingers on her face for close-up after close-up.
When your face is 12 feet high, every wrinkle shows, remember. No worries, Julie. You’re still the golden girl.
She plays a woman who falls prey to Altzheimer’s disease after 44 years of a happy marriage to a university professor (movingly played by Gordon Pinsent), and is forced to go into a nursing home from which she will never emerge.
Her doting husband is loath to give her up, but is forbidden to visit his wife for a month while she “settles in”.
By that time she has lost all memory of him and transferred her affections to a fellow inmate, a wheelchair-bound patient (Michael Murphy) who can neither speak nor move.
Julie’s portrayal of a woman losing her memory and her mind manages to be both touching and terrifying.
But the film belongs to Gordon Pinsent – as he watches his beloved wife slowly and inexorably slip from his reach, his silence is worth a thousand words.
Make sure you take a box of tissues with you. On second thoughts, take two boxes.
You’re going to need them.

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