Review of Away from Her (2007) by Niloo R — 21 Jul 2014

Really reminiscent of atom egoyan's films, which in my opinion is NOT a compliment, at all. though to be fair, this wasn't quite as bad as an egoyan film, but it was pretty close. I think this "canadian" filmmaking style is just something I personally don't connect to and so that influences the way I evaluate films of this style.

I understand that this is a "style" , but to be honest, it just looks like sloppy, self-indulgent filmmaking to me, and the only thing that keeps me from writing these filmmakers (egoyan/poley/every other "canadian" filmmaker) off as completely incompetent is that they somehow seem to have a fan base.

this film in particular, was inexcusably dull, and I think that's because it, like every other canadian film, lacked drama and heart. nothing was pushed to the limit, everything was ordinary, the characters went to the brink of conflict and just backed off, spending the DRONING length of the film just talking about how they felt instead of showing it.

I also thought the alzheimer's disease wasn't portrayed very realistically - the character seemed to conveniently forget and remember to serve the plot, to the point where it really felt like the character was consciously pretending to have alzheimer's to punish her husband.

the other characters also suffered, because they weren't able to establish their relationships/motives - we had no idea how anyone felt about anyone else or why they acted the way they did, so all their actions seemed forced, artificial and purely to serve the rather non-existent plot.

the dialogue of course didn't help at all, since the characters spoke in incoherent, cryptic riddles that were supposed to be deep and profound, but in actuality just made the characters even more superficial and less human.

I was unable to empathize with any of these characters because I didn't believe that any of them CARED about what was happening - they said some cryptic words, walked around, cross-country skied (which must be one of the most visually boring sports ever) but none of it seemed to lead to anything.

the movie inched along at a glacial pace, but it also felt unfinished because nothing happened. I don't know - maybe i'm just not equipped to understand the art of this type of canadian filmmaking, but I think at the core of it, if a film can't make you feel, it's failed as entertainment and as art.