Mein Leben ohne mich

The plot of this beautiful film seems a trivial melodrama, but the way it was told by scriptwriter/director Isabel Coixet makes a great difference. What could have turned into a hollow movie only made to make you cry, became a deep, witty and truly heartbreaking personal journey into a young woman's mind, Ann (beautifully performed by Sarah Polley). Ann is 23 years old, has two little daughters and one attentive husband, Don (Scott Speedman). They're poor and live in a trailer settled down at Ann's mother's back yard, but they're happy. When Ann gets to know that she has a terminal cancer which is going to kill her in a couple of months, she decides to live to the fullest - and doesn't tell anyone about her weak health state.

Isabel Coixet led everything wonderfully, and the entire cast is magnificent (even Scott Speedman is pretty good). Amanda Plummer, as Ann's obsessed-with-food friend, proves definitely her taste for bizarre characters (what's far from being a fault, in her case); Deborah Harry is surprising as Ann's bitter mother; Mark Ruffalo (one of the best actors nowadays), as a lonely man who falls in love with Ann, is captivating and passionate, and Leonor Watling is not only a beautiful Spanish girl. Maria de Medeiros and Alfred Molina enrich the film with their small parts. Everyone is great, but Sarah Polley definitely rules. She is much more talented than 95% of current Hollywood young "stars". Gwyneth Paltrow, for instance, would be ridiculous as Ann; but as Sarah Polley hasn't got 'starpower', she didn't even get an Oscar nomination. It's OK. Sarah doesn't need an Academy Award to prove her talent, and we won a great actress.

Something very positive happens in Hollywood and Indy films lately. Strong female roles ceased to be rare roles that are usually portrayed by Jodie Foster. More and more, lately, there is an abundance of strong female characters and more importantly, many actresses who can do these roles the justice they (both roles and actresses) deserve. Today there is a tremendous buzz over Scarlet Johansson (assuming she didn't waste it all on "The perfect score" which hadn't been released in Israel, yet). But Scarlet is not the only member on the ever growing list of actresses in their 20's with the maturity I'll probably never have (and I'm entering to my 30's), other actresses that pop into mind are Piper perabo (Lost and delirious), Maggie Gylenhaal (Secretary, Mona lisa smile) and Thora Birch (American beauty, Ghost world) to name just a few.

In this film a "new" actress named Sarah Polley (she has the filmography many veteran actresses wish to have) emerges successfully from the pernicious world of child acting into a mature woman for her age which is, coincidentally the basic premise of the character she portrays.

Ann is a 23 year old mother who is notified that because of a malignant tumour, her death is near. Ann decides, after her initial shock (maybe the best scene in the film) to accomplish a couple of assignments before passing away, one of which is to conceal the fact of her illness from her family in the rationalization of sparing them the endless hours of waiting in hospital friendly corridors and consuming hospital gourmet food. Ann spends the last two months of her life patching things with her long incarcerated father, develop a romantic fling with a pensive heart broken guy (Mark Ruffalo) and looks for an agreeable sucssessor mother to her family, among other things. This film has the idea and the cast to make it one of the best films 2003 had to offer but somewhere along the line, the emotional charge that this plot encompasses never comes to full exploitation and i found myself wondering if the movie's writer/director Isabel Coixet (i have no idea how to pronounce this name), in her attempt to make the movie optimistic and not just outright depressing, wrongfully decided to avoid emotional obstacles in her script and her direction. Another detail that bothers me in the film is what I refer to as the "Hollywooditis decease". This decease is a terminal one, but those who get it look absolutely great until the very last day of their lives. I don't pretend to be a doctor but it seems to me that a person with terminal cancer can't explain his/her fatigue simply by Anemia, Ann's cover story.

But I dwell on the negative and in films its usually a dumn thing to do. The right thing to do is to make the overall judgement, the film is undoubtly good, Polley's performance is excellent and Debby Harry (Blondie's lead singer) is surprisingly good, but the movie leaves the viewer with the feeling it had the potential of being a masterpiece, which it isn't.

8.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter

This is without a doubt, the saddest, but most beautiful movie I have ever seen. It really touched me. The acting is superb, the plot heartrending and thought provoking, and the cinematography outstanding. I spent 2 hours blubbering like a schoolgirl, and it was worth every second. The simple fact that one's life can seem not to have started until the point where one's own mortality is realized is a revelation to me. This movie has opened my eyes to the importance of life and love. Money, power, fame, all are fleeting and can be lost in a moment to illness, famine, war, or fate. It is those around us, and our relationships to them, that are the things to be held most dear in our final accounting.

Really, this film should be too much to bear. An attractive young mother discovers she has 2 months to live and sets about trying to make use of her time doing things for herself and the people she loves; but keeping her diagnosis to herself. The film intentionally concentrates on the start of this period, allowing it to soft-focus the pain, and from a certain perspective, everything works out with an almost synthetic convenience. And yet this is a great film. All the performances are spot on (even Debbie Harry is great against type), and it's full of humour, not black death-defying humour but the life-affirming humour of everyday life. Additionally, the film is wonderfully constructed, both in the skill with which it moves between scenes and also in the larger way the story in told (the entire plot is structured around an eventual suicide that is only implied) - cloyingness is averted through the confidence the director has in the tale and the cast. Death is surely never this romantic, but in its own way this film is as harrying as Mike Nicholls' 'Wit'. A painful film, but one that makes you glad to be alive.

Movies based on this topic have immense space to showcase many aspects of an individual's life directly or indirectly affected. Like a one Korean movie Wedding Dress too had a same concept which really made me and wife emotional in number of moments. However, starting with a high hope, this one dint touched my feelings to say that yes i started caring about the cancer patient, virtually. It revolved around doing things and completing ones long lasting wishes, which was a great approach, but as story grew, i felt away from it rather getting close.

So yaa, to me just an above average stuff and only one time watch.