La mia vita senza me

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.

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.

If you are in the mood to cry and be moved and touched then this is the movie for you. Even though it has a very sad story line...it doesn't leave you extremely depressed like most sad movies do. The movie is very well done both artistically and acting wise. The main character is so beautiful but in a very real way. I think that's one reason why it is so easy to relate to this women and her life. She is a very strong women through her last few months before she knows she's going to die, which I find to be very refreshing, compared to just watching a sad, depressed, angry women dying. When I tell people what this movie is about they usually don't seem very enthusiastic about seeing a movie about a women who knows she's going to die, but let me just say it is so much more than just that! I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone that is sensitive and deep and compassionate. I loved it. It also makes you really look at your life and makes you want to live life to the fullest. Give it a try!

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.

MY LIFE WITHOUT ME (2003) ***1/2 Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, Deborah Harry, Amanda Plummer, Leonor Watling, Julian Richings, Maria de Medeiros, Jessica Amlee, Kenya Jo Kennedy, Alfred Molina. Polley gives a remarkable performance as a young wife and mother who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and with the few precious months left to her own devices she decides not to tell anyone but instead attempts to live life by her own guidelines including taking a lover (Ruffalo in a genial turn) and setting her family up with a new mother figure in the form of new next door neighbor Watling (who gives a heartrending speech about her occupation as a nurse) and in the process realizing just how important it is to live life each day as if it were indeed your last. Director Isabel Coixet adapts Nanci Kincaid's short story 'Pretending the Bed is a Raft' with clear-eyed sharpness allowing the ultimate heartbreak to occur off-screen and instead focusing on the funny and poignant pangs her protagonist silently endures. A real gem that reminded me of the '70s golden age of indies.