I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

So much to love, so much to hate in this film.Loved the acting, love the characters, love the script. But the story is garbage. Why would anyone not share their cancer diagnosis with those they most love? Why would a woman leave her children with a strange neighbor who just moved in and met less than a minute ago? Why would a husband not ask where his wife was after she spent the night sleeping in a laundermat. Why would a woman choose to be so incredibly selfish to her two young girls instead of giving them the chance to learn about death and say goodbye?The main character's actions and motivations make no sense anyway, because we have no context for her behavior before or after her diagnosis. I was bored through most of the movie anyway. Watch it for the acting, not the story.

Many reviewers of this film appear to be giving it 1/10 stars based on the grounds that it was unscientific in its portrayal of medical diagnostic procedures (are people seriously that nerdy that they would over-analyze a fictional story to this extent?), that Ann should not have had a fling with another man, and that the film was too pathetic.Yes, this film is about extremely pathetic people, including Ann herself. But this is not a bad thing. Ann, who got knocked up at seventeen, dropped out of high school and works as a janitor, living in a cramped trailer in her mom's backyard, is about as pathetic as they come, yet after she is diagnosed with cancer and told she only has two months to live, her actions touch the lives of everybody she meets. An estranged father who lives in prison. A painfully shy doctor who has the unfortunate task of giving her a death sentence. A woman obsessed with diets who eats like a cow. A man whose wife has just taken off on him and left him with nothing but the bare bones of an apartment building and stacks of used books. Despite Ann being somewhat pretentious and selfish, she does the most selfless thing by distancing her friends and family from having to watch her die in some hospital bed. For anybody who thinks she should've just sucked it up and spent the rest of her days getting tested and treated like an experiment as she wasted away in front of her own husband and two young children, I ask you to contemplate why you think this would have been better for everyone involved. Instead, she's there for her family until her final moments.As for the brief affair with Lee, I really don't think it was about sex. I think she just wanted to know what being with a mature person was like. Her husband, a twenty-four-year-old high school drop-out who goofs around and builds swimming pools for fast cash, loves Ann but is just as inexperienced as she is. Her entire life she's been trapped in that little mobile home with a depressed mother and a jailed father, continuing a trailer trash cycle and never even having the experience to be anything different - and now she'll never have that chance because she's dying. Lee, an older adult who has traveled the world and is an avid reader, is the closest she can get. Although I was slightly angry at her for almost using his fragile state of recent divorce to have another try at romance, I still don't really consider her actions wrong.One of my favorite parts of this film is the sort of unspoken pact she makes with her doctor, who against better judgment befriends her and enjoys her company although she is dying. Dr. Thompson promises to hold onto her numerous cassette tapes of prerecorded birthday messages for her children, as well as photos of her children, messages for her mom, Don and for Lee as well. Even at the end of the film he remains devoted in this, locking himself in his own office in a state of grief before neatly stacking each cassette tape in order by labeled year to give to her kids. Another character whom Ann connects with is a hairdresser who turns out to be very insecure but talented. Together they form a friendship and Ann attempts to beautify herself but only gets as far as fake nails.I think that's the thing about this film, every character is doing something in life that maybe they weren't meant to do or to be. Every character is insecure. Ann was never meant to be a drop-out living in a trailer, dying at a young age. Her mom was never meant to be some chain-smoking baker who gets drunk all the time. Lee was never meant to be divorced and seeking companionship at a seedy laundromat. Dr. Thompson was never meant for the cold, unsympathetic world of medical work. Yet somehow all these characters end up in Ann's life, and somehow they all learn from her.This film as I said is definitely not perfect by any means, nor does it have to be. Personally I find things like Silence of the Lambs to be hugely overrated and stupid, but that's just me I guess. I prefer films about humanity, regardless of a couple of slip-ups in the way a fictional medical procedure is carried out or an affair between two lovers used as a plot device. If you're the type of person who picks through everything you watch with a fine-toothed comb, this isn't the kind of film for you. If not, I recommend it strongly.

At the beginning of the movie Anne says "you never saw yourself as one of those people who like looking at the moon or who spend hours gazing at the waves or sunset.." The irony is that this sums me up to a T... this is exactly who I am... if you're anything like me I'm sure you'll enjoy this movie too. This movie is more of a contemplation of life... not of what it could be or it should be, but what it is... being able cope with leaving it all behind and thinking more of the ones you'll leave behind than of yourself. Anne is able to do what most of us can't even fathom.. accept that this is it, this is all it will be, make the best of everything and appreciating the simple things This movie isn't about travelling the world, doing every crazy thing imaginable, deluding yourself into thinking one more year of life REALLY makes a difference and ignoring the emotional toll it will have on your entire family... it's about leaving them with the best memories possible and saving them the heartache when the odds are stacked against you. The movie relies on the simple things like everyday relations between the characters to get it's point across, and it's the ease with which we can relate to Anne and the maturity with which she handles the situation that tears at the heart string. Yeah she may not be an entirely selfless character, but we understand exactly why she makes the decisions she does, and not one of us question her motives.The title 'My Life Without Me' perfectly describes this movie... imagining everything you've ever known, everyone you've ever loved, continuing life without you and doing your best to leave them with the best memories of you and coping with your death.

Working-class wife and devoted mother to two small girls finds out she has ovarian tumors which have spread, leaving her with only two months to live; she decides not to tell anyone her prognosis, instead writing out a list of things to do before she dies and making voice-tapes to her loved ones expressing her emotions. In the lead, Sarah Polley is a good crier; her line readings are sometimes sweet and sometimes annoying, and she has a bad habit of wiping her hair away from her face and tucking it behind one ear (all the while stammering over her sentences: "Actually...it's, um, like..."). Still, her natural, mild manner is embraceable, and she works well with Mark Ruffalo as an unconventional prince. Polley's backyard-trailer family is a bit too good to be true, yet the movie--which is really about living without bitterness--gets its point across nicely in many intimate scenes. Polley's voice-over (waxing poetic about the senselessness of material goods, about loneliness, about regret) is a clichéd habit picked up from the indie-film circuit, yet the finale is quite moving regardless. **1/2 from ****