My Life Without Me (2003)

I suppose this movie is trying to be deep and insightful, but oh God, how shallow it is. There's no message which you could take from it. No character to which you could relate - they all seems hollow and unreal, they're like puppets in hands of someone with a very limited imagination.Ann - the main character is a young and (so far) healthy individual. She have two little daughters and a loving husband. After getting the news that she has only two months to live, she make some interesting decisions. First of all, she refuse to get a second opinion and she refuse any treatment. Her initial reaction is, to sit, cry a little bit, then ask for a candy. Her next action is, to write an obligatory "things to do before I die" list, on which she put things which I can split to following groups:1. Predictable: she decide that she'll tell her daughters that she love them every day, visit father in Jail, have a picnic with family, and say what she's (really) thinking. We don't see much of this in the movie.2. Shallow: get some false nails (do something with hair), smoke and drink as much as she want. Those are the most interesting things she can imagine, when she know she have only two months on this earth? How sad…3. Silly: find Don (husband) a new wife and record birthday messages for her daughters, for every year until they eighteen. I don't understand, why looking for a new wife for husband? He's not retard, he's good looking, caring young man, obviously he can find a new wife. And I suppose he should be able to choose her himself, when he feels the time is right. And why create some sad, crying messages, which her daughters supposed to listen, on every birthday, until they're eighteen!? Wouldn't that be kind of a depressing on birthdays? Why not just tell the family what's going on, and allow them to go through this with her?4. Selfish: make love with other men to see what it is like, make someone fall in love with her. She have so little time to live, yet she desires not to spend it with family, but rather seek an affair in which one of her hopes is, that (not she) but the other person will fall in love with her. Why? She's already very much loved, her husband is portrayed as such a tender person; if he find out what she did, he'll be hurt, her daughters will be hurt. The person who she have an afar with, if he'll indeed fall in love with her, will be hurt at the end. She herself will be hurt. Hurting whole bunch of people, just so that she'll satisfy her ego and "see what it is like".And this is how the movie is, above all we just watch her running to her new lover - even if that means leaving kids with a complete stranger and constantly lying to husband. We don't see how she's dealing with sickens, because beside throwing up occasionally, there's no signs that she's actually sick. We don't see that she'd be dealing with any mental challenges concerning the fact that she'll soon die, - her challenges are, above all, those of any adulterer: not being caught, finding time to see lover.But even for a movie about adulterer, this one is very shallow, as she's facing no moral dilemma whatsoever. All seems so natural for her, almost as her family wouldn't consist of real people, but rather soulless dolls, being there purely to play a side role in her life. Funny enough, this is what her new lover becomes very soon too. So, she's selfish, shallow control-freak, unable to care about or love anyone but herself. Well, my guess would be then, that her illness must be some karmic balancing - hopefully in next life, she'll learn to be a bit nicer.

"It's better to forget, than to remember me and cry." - The Cure Isabel Coixet's "My Life Without Me" stars Sarah Polley as a hard working mother who learns that she has but a few months left to live. Polley keeps her impending death from her kids and husband, and begins instead to write and record a series of notes and tapes for her family. Through this material she hopes to "be with them" long after she has passed away. Polley's impending demise is mirrored to the lives of various other characters, including her own mother. Though these characters are alive, they wade through life like the walking dead, treading water in a world rife with pain, disappointment and morbid suffocation. Elsewhere Polley spends her last months indulging in various experiences, most notably an adulterous love affair with a character played by Mark Ruffalo.Polley and Ruffalo - two underrated actors - are as powerful as they often are, and the film contains a number of neat little moments which are sensitively directed and well acted. The film's overall plot, though, is well worn. It's hard to elevate material like this, or take it interesting, new places. The film's sentimental and predictable and the cast, who are often wonderfully raw, deserve much better.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.

I don't watch a cool movie for a long time, don't know why but there are a lot of funny movies shoot for money but aftermath they gives you nothing.This is not a this type of movie.Director and players are not far famed at least I didn't know one of their name before seen this movie.You should watch this movie with your girl-boy friend if they exist, cos after ending it will change your mood, trust me.I don't wanna talk about story of this film, just see it if you still didn't.

Working-class wife and devoted mother to two small girls finds out she has ovarian tumors which have spread, leaving her with only two months to live; she decides not to tell anyone her prognosis, instead writing out a list of things to do before she dies and making voice-tapes to her loved ones expressing her emotions. In the lead, Sarah Polley is a good crier; her line readings are sometimes sweet and sometimes annoying, and she has a bad habit of wiping her hair away from her face and tucking it behind one ear (all the while stammering over her sentences: "Actually...it's, um, like..."). Still, her natural, mild manner is embraceable, and she works well with Mark Ruffalo as an unconventional prince. Polley's backyard-trailer family is a bit too good to be true, yet the movie--which is really about living without bitterness--gets its point across nicely in many intimate scenes. Polley's voice-over (waxing poetic about the senselessness of material goods, about loneliness, about regret) is a clichéd habit picked up from the indie-film circuit, yet the finale is quite moving regardless. **1/2 from ****