Review of My Life Without Me (2003) by Pénélope C — 15 Oct 2007

I was so unprepared for this movie. It pulls out all these aches that lurk inside, behind my heart, and right in its lonely centre. Sarah Polley's character reminds me of everyone I know. She reflects them back in a more honest, much clearer image.

She's dying, we all are, but she is in a few weeks. She's dying and somehow I want her life. Her tiny little life with 2 little girls and a sweet, loving, well meaning husband. All I can think is wouldn't it be nice to be 17 again when it was so easy to fall in love.

Its her honesty I crave. The freedom the knowledge of her own death has opened in her life... that is why I long to be her. There is no space for inauthentic living, no time to waste being resentful or unexpressed.

This film about imminent death is about living life in all its precious greatness in every moment, even those we don't understand. Its about facing the wonder and pain same, about honouring the beauty of it all.

This movie is physically hard to watch. I stopped periodically to take walks around my apartment to decompress. In the bathroom, I stopped and stared at my puffy, red, streaming eyes as they screamed at me through the mirror.

In some way, I am beautiful in this ravaged moment. Beautiful, because that the essence of the world. Every atom, every thing is beautiful. As surely as I know time does not exist, I know this. Its impossible for anything not to be beautiful, not even longing, not even pain, not even death.

I have touched the cheek of death with my own fingers, felt the cold, hard yellowed skin of stillness and even that was beautiful, and my eyes and heart were opened to feelings and scenes I never would have noticed.