PREMIERE.COM REVIEW (published 10/02/03)

 
Imagine that you’ve just been told that you have two months to live. Who would you tell? Your spouse? Your mother? Your kids? How would you spend your last 60 or so days on earth? In the touching film My Life Without Me, written and directed by Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet, Ann (Sarah Polley), a 23-year-old woman with two daughters, a sometimes-employed husband, and a lackluster job and home, faces just such a grim scenario.

Ann accepts her diagnosis with calm resolve—and keeps it to herself. She doesn’t tell her embittered mother (Deborah Harry), her imprisoned father (Alfred Molina), or her cheerfully oblivious husband (Scott Speedman). Instead, she makes a to-do list for her final days. On it: Take a lover (Mark Ruffalo). Get a manicure. Record annual birthday messages for the kids. Find new wife (Leonor Watling) for husband. Once she’s faced with the knowledge of her impending death, Ann is able to embrace life and assume control of hers.

The actions that Ann takes, guided by her to-do list, seem too uncomplicated to be entirely believable. It’s doubtful that someone with a terminal illness wouldn’t at least have second thoughts about keeping such a secret from loved ones. And adultery has never been such a guilt-free affair. But Polley’s Ann is scrappy, honest, and warm, not someone to be pitied or doubted or chastened. She emerges as a sympathetic character, mostly because she never expresses regret for the life she chose—or its limitations and responsibilities. She appreciates how she lived before she was dying; now she just wants to taste some of the stuff she missed along the way.

—Kelly Borgeson