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Movies / On DVD / My Life Without Me
My Life Without Me

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My Life Without Me (2003)

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65 %
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Reviews Counted:100

Fresh:65

Rotten:35

Average Rating:6.3/10

Consensus: Sarah Polley keeps this production afloat with her moving performance.

Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: Ann is 23, she has 2 daughters, a husband who spends more time unemployed than working, a mother who hates the world, a father who has spent the last ten years in jail, a strange predilection for... Ann is 23, she has 2 daughters, a husband who spends more time unemployed than working, a mother who hates the world, a father who has spent the last ten years in jail, a strange predilection for the audio-books of soap operas and a job as a night janitor in a university she could never go to in the dayime. They live in a trailer on the yard of her mother’s house, on the outskirts of Vancouver. However, this gray existence changes completely when, after a medical check-up, a shy doctor tells her that she has very little time left, hardly two months to live. Ann decides to keep her condition a secret, not to tell anybody, not even her husband. She doesn't want people around her with long faces mumbling the word "death." She starts to make a list of "things to do before dying" which she completes little by little. The list goes from "saying exactly what I think" to "getting fake fingernails." Unexpectedly, Ann discovers an appetite for life that drives her to live her last days with a sensual and furious intensity she had not known before. During that time she prepares her daughters life without her, meets a solitary wounded man who she seduces (and paradoxically brings back to life), and faces what remains of her life with a courage she never knew she had. -- © Sony Pictures Classics [More]

Starring: Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, Leonor Watling

Starring: Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, Leonor Watling, Deborah Harry, Amanda Plummer, Maria De Medeiros

Director: Isabel Coixet

Director: Isabel Coixet
Screenwriter: Isabel Coixet
Producer: Esther Garcia, Gordon McLennan
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

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Reviews for My Life Without Me

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/30/06
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Coixet's dignified, heartfelt little indie drama proves that dying young doesn't always come with the schmaltz of a Julia Roberts movie. Outstanding.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
11/05/03
Jamie Russell
Jamie Russell
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

My Life Without Me is an impressively acted, uplifting, thoughtful film that transcends its seemingly depressing subject matter. Highly recommended.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
10/26/03
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

While the subject matter sounds morbid and depressing, the film is anything but! It vibrates with real life rhythms of speech and relationships

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
09/04/03
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
01/15/04
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
02/09/06
Derek Adams
Derek Adams
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Life constantly rises above the mundane, mainly because there's so much that's incredibly touching and believable about Polley's character.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
09/26/03
E! Online
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[A] truly inspiring cinematic achievement.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
10/08/03
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

Sarah Polley's performance is exquisite, with shades of complexity flickering across her face as she absorbs the information her doctor has given her: confusion, disbelief, then determination.

Full Review Source: FilmStew.com | comment Comment
09/29/03
Annlee Ellingson
Annlee Ellingson
FilmStew.com

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Movie Gazette | comment Comment
11/07/03
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Movie Gazette

Polley wipes herself of all intelligence and beauty for the role, and almost all emotion; her lack of affect is both frustrating and somehow fitting.

Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
10/01/03
Catharine Tunnacliffe
Catharine Tunnacliffe
eye WEEKLY

Makes you think twice about what's really important in life and a movie that can do that is a movie worth seeing.

Full Review Source: TheMovieChicks.com | comment Comment
10/24/03
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com

A movie that is spare, candid and beautiful in every detail.

Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | comment Comment
10/24/03
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
St. Paul Pioneer Press

My Life Without Me thematizes the perennial problem of identifying with characters.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
12/05/03
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

The film has a lot of humor and joy in it.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
10/01/03
David Grove
David Grove
Film Threat

Fascinating.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
David Grove
David Grove
Film Threat

...pulls out all the stops to elicit the requisite emotions from the audience, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | comment Comment
11/02/03
David Nusair
David Nusair
Reel Film Reviews

It takes considerable sleight of hand, and a certain temerity, to fashion an uplifting tale about death. Yet My Life Without Me pulls it off.

Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | comment Comment
12/11/03
Duane Dudek
Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One of the year's sweetest surprises.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
10/10/03
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle

Transforming [Ann] into a woman who wants what she wants and reaches for it now, Polley not only subverts cliché but humanizes one of the most hard-heartedly malicious phrases in the American language -- trailer trash.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
09/24/03
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly
 
 
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