GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Away from Her
Lions Gate Films

Away from Her reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 88 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.0 out of 10
based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 62 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Kristen Thomson, Wendy Crewson, Alberta Watson, Thomas Hauff, and Katie Boland

This beautiful yet unconventional story of a couple coming to grips with the onset of memory loss is adapted from celebrated author Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." (Lionsgate)


GENRE(S): Drama  |  Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Sarah Polley
Alice Munro (short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain)
 
DIRECTED BY: Sarah Polley  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: September 11, 2007 
Theatrical: May 4, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Canada 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
One of the most remarkable and moving love stories the movies have recently given us.
Read Full Review
100
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Rarely has love at any age been depicted so honestly on screen. For such a fully realized portrait to be created by a 28-year-old first-time director is even more remarkable.
Read Full Review
100
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
For a movie about the importance of memory, Away From Her is appropriately sophisticated in its treatment of time. Polley has broken the chronological story into three sections of unequal length and woven them together, approximating our own mercurial journeys through the past.
Read Full Review
100
San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
To say it is about a debilitating disease is as reductive as saying "Little Miss Sunshine" is about a beauty pageant. Both are intimate stories of family ties that bind but sometimes also choke.
Read Full Review
100
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Extraordinary--delicate, seriously disturbing, and lovely.
Read Full Review
100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Anyone who could read Munro’s original story and think they could make a film of it, and then make a great film, deserves a certain awe.
Read Full Review
90
The New Yorker David Denby
The movie, Polley's feature début, is a small-scale triumph that could herald a great career.
Read Full Review
90
Newsweek David Ansen
For anyone who grew up worshiping at the shrine of Julie Christie, the notion that she could be playing a white-haired woman drifting into senility is a jolt to the system. But her radiance, beauty and talent are undiminished: she's hauntingly, heartbreakingly good.
Read Full Review
90
Village Voice Ella Taylor
It's a precociously assured and mature work, at once humble and bold, that keeps faith with Munro's precise, graceful prose while tailoring its linear progression into shapely cinematic form.
Read Full Review
90
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
Poignant, wise and unafraid -- just the sort of film for a young person, or any person, for that matter, to make.
Read Full Review
90
The New York Times A.O. Scott
I can't remember the last time the movies yielded up a love story so painful, so tender and so true.
Read Full Review
89
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
A phantom of a movie whose beautiful flakes fall into the deep crevices of memory long after the seasons change.
Read Full Review
88
Boston Globe Ty Burr
With a tranquil fearlessness, it goes beyond the death of memory, to see what might be found in the unexplored country beyond. The answer is both frightening and comforting: More love. Unspecified love. Universal love.
Read Full Review
88
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
As this intimate, beautifully observed film unfolds, you realize that the story's themes -- the nature of love, the role of sex in relationships and the ways in which we learn to make peace with our guilty consciences -- are relevant no matter what age you happen to be.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A heartbreaking elegy to mature love that honors the lovers and the long, neurodegenerative tango that is their last.
Read Full Review
88
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A director needs to know how to pace the tale, where to place the camera, how to draw out a shy actor or get out of the way of a strong one. Those skills are rarer than you'd think. Sarah Polley, who never wrote or directed a feature film before Away From Her, has them all.
Read Full Review
88
TV Guide Ken Fox
A sad and sometimes funny tale of Alzheimer's, love and loss.
Read Full Review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
A film rich in paradoxes. Much of the film's style is dreamy, from the snow-covered Ontario landscapes suggestive of a blanket of forgetfulness, to Julie Christie's pale, intoxicating beauty, to the ambient musical score.
Read Full Review
88
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Julie Christie is simply astounding as a woman slipping into the ravages of Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's deeply affecting and artfully crafted Away From Her.
Read Full Review
88
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Even those who've long noted Polley's intelligence on screen will be amazed by the perception she displays as a filmmaker.
Read Full Review
88
USA Today Claudia Puig
Does the finest job of any film in painting a believable portrait of aging, capturing the sadness, confusion, anxiety and defiance of the early stages of dementia.
Read Full Review
88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
All the acting is first-rate -- Dukakis gives major dimensions to a supporting role. And Christie, a Sixties screen goddess in "Darling" and "Doctor Zhivago," shows that her spirit and grace are eternal. She's a beauty. So is the movie.
Read Full Review
83
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Given the subject, the movie is too romanticized, and Christie's eyes remain too sharp here to convincingly convey someone whose memory is fast slipping away. Much of it is powerful anyway.
Read Full Review
83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
Has its heartbreaking moments and its surprise giggles, particularly thanks to Ron Hewat's minor role as a former hockey play-by-play announcer now narrating his nursing-home life.
Read Full Review
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
There's nothing messy or unkempt about the beautifully, quietly heartbreaking story of unconditional love and emotional sacrifice.
Read Full Review
83
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A quiet, heartfelt story of love and loss.
Read Full Review
80
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A feature film that's often astringent on the surface, yet deeply and memorably stirring.
Read Full Review
80
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Polley captures the brisk, cheerful fascism of nursing-home existence with merciless clarity; if you've visited a parent or grandparent in one of those places, you may want to laugh and cry in the same moment.
Read Full Review
80
The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
The pain of watching a spouse succumb to Alzheimer's is given a particularly deep and sensitive treatment in Away From Her.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Dennis Harvey
What Away From Her achieves is quite admirable-- a low-key, intelligent setting for performances marked by those same qualities.
Read Full Review
80
Film Threat Jeremy Mathews
Julie Christie gives a fabulous performance of mysterious, unclear depth as Fiona.
Read Full Review
80
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Away From Her is a twilight-of-life love story, one that harshly demolishes our romantic notions of love and loyalty, then replaces them with something deeper and, finally, more consoling.
Read Full Review
75
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Munro's stark lily needed none of this gilding.
Read Full Review
75
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The actors are all perfect and yet not. Christie, most obviously, is simply too gorgeous, even when she's meant to be rattled and lost; Pinsent is too credibly stolid; Dukakis never vanquishes an impression of sourness. These may be quibbles, but they add up.
Read Full Review
75
ReelViews James Berardinelli
A tender movie about a poignant and difficult subject.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Olly Richards
It's Sarah Polley through and through: slightly too glum for its own good, but reeking of quality and feeling.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 62 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Patricia M. gave it a10:
This is a stunning movie, beautifully filmed, replete with a superb cast, bittersweet undertones, and quiet victories. The script builds nicely on the Alice Munro story with some lovely additions resulting in first rate movie making.

Franky P. gave it a9:
Profoundly beautiful and moving.

Blake J gave it an8:
A movie that knows what it is trying to get across and gets it across. A feat that not very many movies these days accomplish. Julie Christie is amazing...her portrayal of Fiona is dead on, a definite front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar come Feb. A movie so sad I never want to watch it again but I will never forget it. Sarah Polley is a new voice and force to be reckoned with.

Drew E. gave it a10:
This incredibly deeply perceptive depiction of the agony and mystery of one of life's most cruel twists of fate is brilliantly realized by director and cast .It is horrifying yet uplifting in its glowing humanity, especially realized by the performances of Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent....I won't get away from her or him or this film for a very very long time.

John P. gave it an8:
I have to shake my head at Tony B.'s comment "the ending unsatisfactory" Since when is there a satisfactory ending to this horrible affliction?? The pace was slow and deliberate this was a movie about mostly septuagenarians and octogenarians. Were they supposed to break out in song and break-dance?? No I think that everyone especially the great Julie Christie did a amazing job in giving us an idea of what it must be like to have to deal with such a debilitating disease. And Mr. Pinsent’s portrayal of a lost puppy husband of 44 years was also overwhelming. My heart goes out to all who have lost their loved ones even though they may still be here in flesh. The movie was about discovery, denial, anger, selfishness and then finally acceptance, not satisfactory endings. For that there is always Walt Disney Productions.

Lester F. gave it a4:
Though possibly the victim of high expectations, I was unable to reflect positively on this film. There are moments of such incongruity within the dialogue here, that the entire films is enfeebled. A lifeless affair with wearisome timing that fails, even, to evoke bare emotion. An opportunity missed.

robert i. gave it an8:
The love between this man and woman will break your heart. Julie Christie's elegant beauty takes your breath away.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: MLB | Spore | iPhone 3G | Paris Hilton | Antivirus Software | GPS | Recipes | Shwayze | NFL

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use