Must see movie: "Away From Her"
Movie explores love, life and Alzheimer’s Disease in nursing home setting.
A new movie, “Away From Her,” is set in a nursing home and examines a couple’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease as well as love within the context of life and aging. An Ontario couple who has been married for over 40 years decides to seek nursing home placement for the wife (played by Julie Christie) after she wanders away from home.
For the first time in the five decades of their relationship, they are forced to undergo a long separation since the nursing home has a “no-visitors” policy for the first 30 days of a resident’s stay so they can adjust to their new surroundings. When the husband visits after the adjustment period, he is devastated to find out that not only has his wife seemingly forgotten him, she has transferred her affections to another man. The other man, also a nursing home resident, is mute and wheelchair-bound. The husband then starts spending time with the male resident’s wife, played by Olympia Dukakis. Dukakis’ own mother had Alzheimer’s Disease.
Source: www.npr.org, May 16, 2007; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491747/
