Critic Reviews

One of the year's sweetest surprises. It sneaks up on you, disarming you with its modesty and tenderness, its remarkable lack of self-infatuation.

The most life-affirming film about death to come along in ages.

Coixet’s film begins with the quiet patter of rain on skin and holds that somehow sweetly sorrowful tone throughout.

This contemplative drama manages to dodge mawkish potholes to emerge as a strangely life-affirming work.

There are a thousand ways you can imagine My Life Without Me going gruesomely wrong but, somehow, it doesn't.

Polley's performance is pitch-perfect.

Successfully surmounts nearly all the challenges of making a film about a young person dying. Which means the writer-director avoids pitfalls. It is not cloying or sentimental or falsely optimistic. It avoids bathos and exaggerated emotions. Instead, the film affirms life in surprising and gratifying ways.

My Life Without Me was produced by the studio of Pedro Almodóvar, and one sees the Spanish director's influence in the way Polley edges her Madonna with a touch of the reckless sensualist.

With a glowing performance by Sarah Polley as the doomed woman, this Spanish-Canadian co-prod, filmed in English, is surprisingly adept at avoiding the worst cliches and most manipulative elements inherent in such a story.

A splendid cast, coupled with Isabel Coixet's deeply committed writing and direction, goes a long way to make this movie affecting to watch even it if doesn't hold up well to reflection once the lights go up.