By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Everything is Polleytical: Sarah Polley's feature directorial debut
Ever since her written-directed-co-produced 2001 short, I Shout Love, a witty, tonally sophisticated 38-minute black comedy about emotional dependency and the love of the Leafs, I’ve been waiting for Sarah Polley to make her feature debut. It’s official: The 27-year-old actress is writing and directing Away with Her in rural Ontario, a feature based on fellow Canadian) Alice Munro‘s short story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” which Polley calls her “favourite short story.” A diverse cast includes Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy and uber-Canadian Gordon Pinsent. Atom Egoyan, who showcased Polley in The Sweet Hereafter is executive producer; it’s being shot by Saddest Music in the World DoP Luc Montpellier.
Polley’s been working on it for two years. The synopsis: “Married for 50 years, Grant (Pinsent) and Fiona’s (Christie) life together is full of tenderness and humour, their serenity broken only by Fiona’s restrained references to the past, complicated further by .. memory loss. Moving Fiona into a nursing home specializing in Alzheimer’s… Grant is not allowed to visit for the first month so she can “adjust”. When he sees her again, Fiona has forgotten him and turned her affection to Aubrey (Murphy) , another resident in the home. Heartbroken, Grant visits daily, bearing witness to the growing bond between her and Aubrey. When Aubrey’s wife, Marian (Dukakis), takes Aubrey home, Fiona becomes deeply depressed, and Grant embarks of the greatest act of self-sacrifice of his life.” You can download Munro’s short story, from the New Yorker, in PDF format, here. [Photo credit: Ken Woroner]