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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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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 critic A-Z; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 >> >|
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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

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

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
12/30/06
Empire Magazine
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
N/R

Click to read the article

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

Uses a loose cinema verite style to give the film a dreamy blanket of quiet, avoiding the 'disease of the week' movie formula.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
10/10/03
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Despite several touching scenes, the script comes perilously close to being maudlin and, while competent, Polley doesn't have the flair to make anything special out of her big role.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
10/16/03
William Arnold
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sarah Polley exudes a steadfast joie-de-vivre that ultimately won me over.

Full Review Source: Palo Alto Weekly | comment Comment
10/15/03
Jeanne Aufmuth
Jeanne Aufmuth
Palo Alto Weekly

Plagued by phony poetic moments and self-conscious quirkiness (Maria de Medeiros appears as a braid-wearing hair stylist obsessed with Milli Vanilli...)

Full Review Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) | comment Comment
01/19/04
John Beifuss
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

A movie about terminal illness that even the Lifetime Television Network might reject.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
09/24/03
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

It's hard to take this movie seriously. It's the cinematic equivalent of dotting your i's with a big heart, a very youngish view of life and death in which everything is too neatly wrapped up with a bow.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
09/26/03
Jami Bernard
Jami Bernard
New York Daily News

Polley's Ann is scrappy, honest, and warm, not someone to be pitied or doubted or chastened.

Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine | comment Comment
10/22/03
Kelly Borgeson
Kelly Borgeson
Premiere Magazine

An odd and really wonderful mix of sadness and wonder.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
10/31/03
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

My Life Without Me is a bold and honest film about a young woman who is forced to number her days and to fill them with as much pleasure and meaning as she can.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
09/25/03
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

(...) Una de las películas más hermosas que se hayan filmado sobre eso tan extraño y tan temido que es el tiempo que queda antes de morir.

Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | comment Comment
09/16/04
Enrique Buchichio
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total

My Life Without Me is a young person's movie about death, the sort of adolescent daydream in which you imagine your own demise.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
10/10/03
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe

Sarah Polley shoots another movie in the foot with her ice-queen demeanour

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment Comment
09/05/03
Bill Chambers
Bill Chambers
Film Freak Central

“My Life Without Me” is both sad and hopeful as it tells how a tragic event can have positive ramifications.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
09/05/03
Robin Clifford
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Coixet's imaginative handling of her somewhat problematic material and a terrific cast make it worthwhile

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
10/03/03
Laura Clifford
Laura Clifford
Reeling Reviews
 
 
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