Rating: 
Summary: Touching, well acted, a gem!!
Review: I loved this movie because of the reality and the touching subject. Makes you think about life and what a gift it is. Well acted and beautiful music. Would love to buy the soundtrack if available.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN
Review: I thought this movie was the most beautiful and heart-warming movie I have ever seen. Because it was a lower budget film it had the sort of realness to it that I had seen in only a few movies. The performances by all the leading actors were astonishing and the story itself left me breathless and in tears. It was so powerful and moving, it made me really think about how important life really is. This was one of the best movies i have seen ever!
Rating:
Summary: Don't pass this one by.
Review: I was in my Hollywood video store with a bunch of 99-cent coupons for rentals and not many ideas on what I wanted to get, when I spotted the cover of this video. Although I consider myself pretty savvy on all things movie-related, I had never heard of this film and I did not recognize the actress on the cover. I did, however, recognize Mark Ruffalo's name and found the storyline intriguing. So, for 99 cents, I took the bait.
I was extremely satisfied with this selection, moreso than with a lot of blockbusters I'd rented over the years.
It's a bittersweet story--well-acted and believably portrayed. This story not only entertains but also teaches lessons, the main one being that life is short and we only have one chance to get what we want out of it.
The main review does mention the dissatisfaction some critics had with the fact that the main character (Annie) pursues a romance with a total stranger. This bothered me somewhat as well, especially since she was so in love with her husband and he with her. And this poor man, played by Ruffalo, gets drawn in by this woman he has no idea is using him. But that said, nothing diminishes from the spirit of the movie--the warmth, the pathos, the intrigue.
My Life Without Me is one of those films that draws you in and keeps you there . . . till the very end.
Rating: 
Summary: Memento Mori
Review: If you are feeling depressed, do not see this movie.
If you are feeling depressed, do see this movie.
I had heard that this movie was bad and had a first line all picked out: "It is a sad day for Spaniards and Blondie fans." The line still applies, but the movie is not bad. It is a sad day for anyone who sees this movie. It is a sad movie.
The remarkable specificity of the cultural references in "My Life Without Me" seem to narrow its audience to those who know the fear of death that an unread copy of the gargantuan "Middlemarch" can inspire. But the most daring aspect of Isabel Coixet's new film is its willingness to deal with the perennially abused topic of someone dying too young. Coixet uses a second-person voiceover and gets away with it. Her main character, Ann (Sarah Polley), contemplates death while rolling a cart through a supermarket fantasy full of people dancing and twirling through the aisles, and Coixet makes it poignant. Ann is a beautiful 23-year-old girl who loves her life and her husband and her children even though she lives in a trailer. She goes to the hospital thinking that she is pregnant and the doctor tells her that she will be dead in two months from Ovarian Cancer.
The movie is full of cliches. Cliches flood the movie like the cancer in the main character's ovaries is flooding her stomach and liver. In the beginning of the movie, when Ann is driving her debauched, depressed and over-the-hill mother (Deborah Harry) home from work, her mother asks her why she listens to Spanish language tapes instead of music "like normal people."
"Mom, no one's normal," Ann replies.
Then, after the conversation has changed and they are saying goodnight, her mother says, "Barry Manilow."
"What?" asks Ann.
"Barry Manilow is normal."
I may have seen this exact exchange before. But the point is that it doesn't matter. The point is that people have that conversation. The point is that you have not seen this movie before -- even if you have cried over "Terms of Endearment" and "Love Story" and everything else. The point is that these cliches are not just cliches anymore. The point is that the story of a kind, intelligent, sensitive 23-year-old girl dying is not too-played-out for life.
Perhaps what is not like most stories is Ann's highly questionable decision not to tell her family when she is diagnosed. The distance that this secrecy creates between Ann and the outside world seems to make a stereotype of everyone in her life (with the exception of her lover Lee, played by Mark Ruffalo with all the charisma of his breakthrough role in "You Can Count on Me"). In this way, "My Life Without Me" is a deeply narcissistic story, a story in which the intimacy between Ann and the viewer flourishes at the expense of all of her other relationships. And it is to the great credit of both Polley and Coixet that the bond between Ann and the audience is so intense that we grant her that narcissism without judgment.
After this movie ended, I looked at the candy in the display case until I heard someone else coming out of the theatre. I turned to him: "Am I a sentimental maniac or was that the saddest movie you've ever seen?"
If you are depressed, see this movie.
Rating:
Summary: What would you do...
Review: if you had only a couple of months to live? Would you tell your family? Would you tell anyone? Or, would you keep it to yourself and make yourself promises to spend those last two months showing your loved ones how much they mean to you and start "living your life?"
Ann is a young mother of two, who lives with her sweet, devoted husband in a trailer in her mother's backyard, while she works at night cleaning at a college.
When she finds out that she has tumors in both ovaries, she doesn't want to spend her last days in a hospital on painkillers. She wants to live, love, and not think about dying. One late night, she makes a list of the things she wants to do. They include 1) Finding a new wife for her husband, one that her children will like. 2) Tell her children that she loves them several times a day. 3) Make love to another man. 4) Make another man fall in love with her. Now three and four may not be the most selfless thing to do and in some reviews on another website, it has been argued that she was a horrible person for doing that. But, in her defense, she is young, has only been with one man, and had to start being responsible and raising a family from 17 years old. She is only human. (I usually don't forgive things like this, but, maybe that's what makes the movie so good.) You think to youself, "What would I do in this situation?"
Sad, bittersweet, full of love, and touchingly real, you may wonder if this is based on a true story. It may (obviously) depress you. But, it will also get you thinking about things that you otherwise would not have thought about.
Rating:
Summary: I cried so hard I almost drowned
Review: It didn't feel like sloppy sentimentality to me, but it was gut wrenching to watch. Everything in her life (the Sarah Polley character) was depressing enough to begin with... janitor job, trailer park, dad in jail, hates her mom, husband with no job... & then she finds out she's dying, decides to keep it to herself & makes a list of all the things she wants to do before she dies... what a set up! You can easily look at the list above & think 'overdone tearjerker,' but the cinematography is beautiful, it's edited so well, it has an amazing soundtrack & Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo & Scott Speedman give lovely performances. I cried through almost the entire film & for a good half an hour after. I admit there were plot contriviances pushing in a bunch of directions ready to yank tears from dewy-eyed viewers like myself, but it was still a thought provoking look at life & Sarah Polley is a goddess. I recommend this, but if you're a crier- be warned!
Rating:
Summary: Good movie despite problematic theme
Review: Just found it in the video shop; obviously didn’t hope for much, but it turned out to be the best movie I’ve seen for quite a while.
If you read the story, you’ll probably imagine “Terms of Endearment†or something of that sort, but this movie manages to stay a small distance off the ‘beaten track’, with some nice, original ideas. The casting is very good too (although most of the side-characters are Spanish, and I don’t know how realistic that is in Mid-West America). Another small problem is the monologues â€" there are too many, and some are too long. Apart from those problems â€" great movie. There is no exaggerated attempt to make the audience cry â€" but you’ll cry anyway… Anyone knows how to obtain a copy of Ruffalo’s sister’s cassette?
Rating:
Summary: Good movie despite problematic theme
Review: Just found it in the video shop; obviously didn’t hope for much, but it turned out to be the best movie I’ve seen for quite a while.
If you read the story, you’ll probably imagine “Terms of Endearment†or something of that sort, but this movie manages to stay a small distance off the ‘beaten track’, with some nice, original ideas. The casting is very good too (although most of the side-characters are Spanish, and I don’t know how realistic that is in Mid-West America). Another small problem is the monologues â€" there are too many, and some are too long. Apart from those problems â€" great movie. There is no exaggerated attempt to make the audience cry â€" but you’ll cry anyway… Anyone knows how to obtain a copy of Ruffalo’s sister’s cassette?
Rating:
Summary: Carpe Diem
Review: MLWM is a poignent movie and real people and a real life. It's beautiful and in the end it makes you think about how important life is.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Gem of a Quiet Film
Review: MY LIFE WITHOUT ME is one of those American made Indies that rekindles faith that we DO know how to make these small, character driven films that have the courage to make a social statement or two and still be wholly entertaining. Isabel Coixet is the creator here and she has assembled a cast that combines highly experienced professionals with actors less well known and makes an ensemble movie that works on every level. There is no giving away the plot in this outing, as from the very first words uttered you know that you are going to 'live through' the dying process of Ann, the perfect mother and wife who incidentally has advanced metastatic ovarian cancer when she first visits her doctor for nausea. Sarah Polley creates a believable lead, holding back the gush and the devastation that accompany her discovery, and instead gives us a young woman who makes a 'list of things to do before I die' and then proceeds on with her life and its new order until she does indeed die. Along the way we get to know her husband Don (played with wit, sensuality, and empathy by Scott Speedman), her co-worker - the ever-dieting Laurie (Amanda Plummer), her assignation lover Lee (Mark Rufallo, always growing as an actor), her mother (Deborah Harry), her hairdresser (Maria de Medeiros), her father (Alfred Molina in a brief but perfectly acted cameo), and a new friend Ann (Leonor Watling - watch this actress...). The story borders on morose but never quite crosses over and it is to Coixet's credit that what could have been a sloppy soap opera outing proves to be a lesson on the value of living. An excellent film on all counts.
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