At the recent luncheon for the nominees for the 80th Academy Awards, the Oscar contenders gave "Away From Her" star Julie Christie probably the loudest ovation of the afternoon, suggesting she's the favorite for the best actress trophy next Sunday. But Sarah Polley, the 29-year-old who scripted and directed Christie's performance, was nearly lost in the starry crowd.
For the official Oscar photo of this year's nominees, Polley was tucked between two of this year's hottest "it" girls: "Juno's" Ellen Page and "La Vie en Rose's" Marion Cotillard. Polley could hardly match the wattage, either, of her fellow adapted screenplay nominees: "Atonement's" Christopher Hampton, "There Will Be Blood's" Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen for "No Country for Old Men" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's" Ronald Harwood.
For all of her comparable anonymity, though, Polley's achievement is nonetheless remarkable: Having never before written a produced screenplay or directed a feature film, Polley not only wrestled a knotty Alice Munro short story into an articulate script but guided an actress more than twice her age into one of the best performances of her career.
"It's totally shocking to me," Polley says of all of the awards attention "Away From Her" has generated. "I think I was the least-prepared person who has ever been nominated for an Academy Award."
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed Polley's work. In independent movies as diverse as "Go" and "The Sweet Hereafter," the Canadian actress has stood out for combining ethereal beauty with forceful intelligence. Although Polley has flirted with commercial projects (an appearance in 2004's "Dawn of the Dead" being a rare example), more often than not she appears in films so small ("The Secret Life of Words," "No Such Thing") that their box-office grosses are less than the Oscars' catering budget. Seriously.
Given her proclivity for art over commerce, it was only fitting that Polley chose Munro's "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" for her feature debut. As rightfully celebrated as her short fiction may be, Munro's stories are not overtly cinematic: In place of narrative, there's contemplation, and where obvious exposition might reside, you'll find veiled gestures.
But Polley believed there was a movie in Munro's story of Fiona, a woman with Alzheimer's disease slipping away, while her imperfect husband, Grant, labors to keep the one man who brings his wife happiness -- a fellow patient named Aubrey at an assisted living center -- near her side.
