Movies ponder pitfalls of long-term relationships
”
Away from Her
”
starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent
”
Breaking and Entering
”
starring Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn
Relationships become a secret language
– inside jokes, shared experiences, glances that say more than
words.
In
”
Away from Her,
”
the 2006 drama directed by Sarah Polley, Grant (Gordon Pinsent)
and Fiona Anderson (Julie Christie) are losing the language of
their relationship.
Movies ponder pitfalls of long-term relationships
“Away from Her” starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent
“Breaking and Entering” starring Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn
Relationships become a secret language – inside jokes, shared experiences, glances that say more than words.
In “Away from Her,” the 2006 drama directed by Sarah Polley, Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona Anderson (Julie Christie) are losing the language of their relationship.
Polley is no stranger to the concept. She directed a short film in 2001, “I Shout Love,” in which a woman mourns all the things she will lose when her boyfriend leaves her. He has already broken up with her, but she persuades him to reenact all their favorite day to day habits on video so that she will always have them.
Away from Her
In “Away from Her,” Fiona has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She is literally losing the memory of her long life with Grant.
Christie’s Fiona is an elegant woman with a mess of white hair who tries to alleviate her husband’s worries as they make some tough decisions about their life together. Fiona wants to go to a nursing home where Grant will not be able to visit for the first 30 days of her stay. They have not spent a night apart in 40 years.
That is not to say that things have always been perfect between them. When he finally is allowed to visit Fiona, she doesn’t seem to recognize him. She has attached herself to a man named Aubrey (Michael Murphy) who suffered a stroke and coma. Fiona pushes Aubrey through the halls of the home, though he never speaks.
Every day, Grant goes to the hospital to see Fiona even as it pains him to see her affection for another man. In some ways it is his penance for his own past indiscretions. He brings in pieces of their old life together in hopes of triggering some memory to bring her back to him. When Aubrey’s wife takes him out of the nursing home, Fiona is grief stricken as though her real husband has died.
Grant must eventually decide if he should sacrifice his relationship with Fiona to give her a bit of happiness while she can still recognize it.
Breaking and Entering
The 2006 film written and directed by Anthony Minghella is as much an examination of relationships as Polley’s film.
Will (Jude Law) is a landscape architect who seems to have it all – a booming business; a beautiful, Swedish wife; and a doting daughter. But all is not as it appears. Will’s business is near King’s Cross, a London neighborhood that is riddle with crime. Though he and his business partner Sandy (Martin Freeman) want to revitalize their neighborhood through landscape design, they don’t make it through the first night without a break in.
His beautiful Swedish wife (Robin Wright Penn) – half-Swedish, as he points out to a friend – is not actually his wife but his girlfriend of 10 years. And 13-year-old Bea is not his biological daughter. Bea has an undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder, and though Liv is constantly taking her to new doctors and trying new treatments, there seems to be no easy way to handle her. When tension at home grows, Will and Liv know exactly what words to say to hurt each other, all part of their secret language.
Will starts spending time outside of the home. After a second break in, he and Sandy stake out the building at night. On a night when Sandy skips the surveillance, Will spots a teen boy climbing up his building. Miro (Rafi Gavron) is an immigrant from Sarajevo who lives with his mother Amira (Juliette Binoche) near King’s Cross.
When Will realizes Amira is a tailor, he uses her job as an excuse to get inside her home, where finds proof that Miro was the one who broke into his building. But he wavers when it comes to turning the boy in after he feels a connection with Amira.
Like Grant, Amira sacrifices something to keep her son safe from prosecution. Will, too, realizes that he needs to sacrifice something to save his relationships with Amira, Liv and Bea.
In other news
Premiere Cinemas will be showing “August Evening” as part of their Cinema Art Series April 8. Local Cesar Flores has a role in the movie as Salazar. The 2007 movie is about an aging, undocumented farm worker named Jaime and his widowed daugther-in-law. Showtimes are 1:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.
