My Life Without Me

(Spain/Canada - 2003)

“You see things clearly now. You see all these borrowed lives, borrowed voices, Milli Vanilli everywhere. You look at all the things you can’t buy – now you don’t even want to buy – all the things that will still be here after you’re gone, when you’re dead. And then you realize that all the things in the bright window displays: all the models and catalogues, all the colors, all the special offers, all the Martha Stewart recipes, all the piles of greasy food, it’s just all there to try to keep us away from death, and it doesn’t work” - Ann

Isabel Coixet’s films deal with people whose future has been severely damaged if not outright robbed by health problems. The Secret Life of Words features a Sarah Polley as deaf nurse caring for a severely burned oil rig worker, while Elegy ultimately has Penelope Cruz dealing with the impending loss of her breast. This earlier movie features an equally introspective Polley as Ann, a 23-year-old dying of inoperable ovarian cancer. All her mom’s dreams never transpired, and Ann made her life decisions so early, marrying her first boyfriend and delivering their first child at 17, that she never had a chance to dream.

Coixet is one of the best directors of actors because she doesn’t put her performers at the mercy of the script. Rather than simply asking them to spell everything out, she focuses her efforts on allowing them to be the character so they can indirectly tell us all we need to know.

One of the specialties of Coixet’s sensitive work is allowing her characters to have some sort of inner life, thus providing an alternative to the usual strict character to character to relationship where they share their thoughts and feelings - the desires and fears of their very personal little world - with the audience. Due to this, Coixet’s work comes across as being more personal and poetic than most of the other artists.

Coixet’s films are so effective because this inner world not only speaks to us, but also asks us to reflect on our own. And really, that’s the success of Coixet’s films that, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses and caring less about whether we agree with the decisions and morality, they are still able to make us contemplate so many aspects of our own existence.

The basic problem with My Life Without Me is not so much the film, but the way the audience is sure to interact with it. No matter how intriguing the premise, it’s hard not to get distracted by whether Ann sparing her family the burden of knowing and instead telling them her terminal illness is merely anemia is the logical or proper thing to do. Her logic is to maintain the accustomed sense of normalcy of everyone around her for as long as possible. I think I’d definitely prefer to know the truth then suddenly have massive regrets for typically neglecting someone I’ll never see again, but the value of a movie doesn’t lie in characters doing either the obvious or what you would do, but rather in making the audience understand their decisions enough to consider, contemplate, and debate them.

What makes My Life Without Me worthwhile is we are not only allowed to see the world through Ann’s eyes, but forced to asked to free ourselves from our own perspective to consider hers. Even if she sometimes aspires to be, Ann is hardly a model of selflessness and maturity. That said, even if the film seems to waver between criticizing the emptiness of western consumerist lifestyle and creating a profound sympathy for all of it that she’ll miss, Ann’s story is not only interesting, but credible if for no other reason than Sarah Polley is a great actress whose belief in her character is apparent at every turn. Granted Polley could make almost any tripe seem honest, but at her best, as she certainly is here, we completely forget we are just watching an actress. Perhaps she’s even better in this role because she lost her own mother to cancer at age 11. Mark Ruffalo doesn’t exactly break new ground with his performance here as lonely thoughtful man traumatized by the failure of his previous relationship, but his melancholy turn as the man Ann gets to fall in love with her is nonetheless a wonderful understated one that holds its own next to Polley’s great work.

While I disagree with some of Ann’s choices in principle, I think the movie works because Ann simply accepts her death rather than trying to ignore the inevitable by putting all her energy into enjoying every last second. This isn’t the typical movie about a trying to go out with a bang. Granted, the typical movie heroine is magically well off rather than a poor sap living in a trailer next to her mom (Deborah Harry), so Ann not wanting to put her family in an even greater financial bind is certainly a factor, but the important thing aspects are Ann is going out on her own terms, and the discovery of what they are, corny as some may be, allows her impending death to actually be her awakening.

I appreciated the laid back manner in which My Life Without Me is was presented, with each character having their own problems and adding some interesting observations on life, many of which are rendered ironic due to Ann’s (and our) knowledge of her impending doom. The film is very strong emotionally, but not in the expected tear jerking manner. Instead, it aims to interact with you rather than elicit a certain reaction.

Coixet’s cinema is one of mood and emotion, largely determined by the cast rather than the technique. She conveys her themes through seemingly meaningless everyday incidents, with a few off the wall comments to spice things up. That said, unlike most entertainment where the characters are so obviously being goofballs for our enjoyment, the little quirks and obsessions of the supporting characters makes them seem more like real individuals and less like the usual clowns. We remember Maria de Medieros’ spirited defense of the artistic merit of Milli Vanilli not because it’s so laughable or contrary to the truth, but rather because real people are often remembered for whatever belief or opinion runs so contrary to the accepted that it becomes their defining characteristic. Instead of reminding me of a sitcom character, she makes me think of my friend who endlessly tried to prove that Brian Brennan was better than Jerry Rice even though anyone who had ever watched a football game knew they weren’t even remotely comparable.

I wouldn’t describe My Life Without Me as realistic, I mean this is a world where Siamese Twins can somehow not be the same sex, but I guess I like that it has the maturity to be immature. Ann’s mostly selfish top 10 list of things to do before she dies is never presented as any sort of universal answer. We know it’s jokey from the moment we see the final the commandment is get false nails and do something with her hair.

Most movies would try to justify the heroine having an affair by making the husband an inattentive abusive drunkard, but Don (Scott Speedman) is, if anything, too noble and good. His character could have some more depth and dimension to be certain, but in a sense he works because we see how excluded he is from the whole process. We wonder how he’ll feel when he realizes Ann never gave him the chance to take care of her in her dying days, know he’d be shattered if he found out she spent them making a new man love her more, and figure he’d rebel if it struck him that she set up their neighbor Ann (Leonor Watling) to be her replacement. If the film addressed any of this, it would be preachy and dull, but it doesn’t need to because it’s set up so Ann’s dialogue with the audience isn’t merely a monologue. We obviously won’t change her decisions, but we are encouraged to come to our own rather than blindly follow in her footsteps.

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