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Synopsis

Ann (Sarah Polley) is a hard working mother with two young daughters, a husband (Scott Speedman) who spends more time unemployed than working, a mother (Deborah Harry) with a history of broken dreams and a father who has spent the last ten years in jail. While other women her age are out partying, she spends her nights working as a janitor in a university she could never afford to go to in the daytime. She lives with her family in a tiny trailer in her mother’s backyard. Somehow, she keeps her head above water: surviving but not “living.”

After collapsing one day, she goes in for a medical check-up, where a shy doctor tells her some shocking news. She tells no one, determined to shield her daughters from the truth and at the same time to take control of her life and to make the most out of it. To Don, her eccentric co-worker Laurie, her mother and her kids, Ann chalks her weak pallor up to a case of anemia. In private, Ann makes a list of things she had always wanted to accomplish in her life but never had the time. They range from the mundane to the sublime-from changing her hairstyle and getting fake nails to finding and making love with another man.

Suddenly, Ann’s life opens up, and the life force that was nascent in this 23 year-old, working-class woman blooms into a quiet yet steely determination.

Burdened with her secret but liberated by her new sense of control, Ann’s emotional journey leads her to unexpected places and gives her life new meaning: the tender moments, the volatile emotions she must keep inside, the recognition that she has the power to understand, examine and fully live her own life. –sonyclassics.com/mylifewithoutme

Director

Original

Isabel Coixet

Born 9 April, 1960 in Sant Adrià de Besòs (Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish film director. She received a History M.A. at University of Barcelona and has worked as a journalist and director for several television advertisements. In 2000 she created Miss Wasabi Films, a production company in charge of the development of several documentaries. Creative director of JWT, founder and creative director of the agency Target and the production company Eddie Saeta, she has done several ads for the brands: British Telecommunications, Ford, Danone, BMW, Ikea, Evax, Renault, Peugeot, Winston, Kronenbourg, Pepsi, Kellogg, MCI, Helene Curtis, Procter Gamble, Philip Morris and the Fundación Once, amongst others. She is a public supporter of the Spanish Socialist Worker’s Party and made several advertisements for television during the 2008 Elections. Member of the jury at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009, Coixet, along with Bigas Luna, are selected to be in charge of the exhibit at the Spanish World… read more

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Juurakkotukka

17Aug12

How is it possible that they fucked up the siamese-story so badly? Opposite sex conjoined twins are impossibility. Or were they trying to tell us that the neighbor-Ann was a liar? There must have been like hundreds of people who read the script and still something like that got through. I just don't get it.

Lisa likes this

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Akane

2Jul11

I really love this mubi!!!

Saloniste likes this

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Carlos Vieira

27Apr10

Let´s finally think about the dead to enjoy life.

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andreairr

8Oct09

Made me realize a LOOOOT of stuff...

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Untitled

By jaredmo​barak on October 17, 2009

It may be clichéd to use the phrase, “if you look ‘blank’ up in the dictionary, you will see a photo of ‘blank’”, but sometimes it is appropriate. Sarah Polley, for instance, epitomizes the words underrated…  read review

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