Films So Good

Following the release of “Women Talking”, I remembered some moments from the acting career of Sarah Polley.

More than fifteen years have passed since the night I ran out in a movie on TV that astonished me. I was a newbie moviegoer at the time, and even though I’ve seen thousands of films since then, I still remember the tense I felt. When the movie ended, I started searching for its title. The movie was a crime drama called “Go”. Among the cast of actors such as Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr and William Fichtner, a blonde actress (Sarah Polley) stuck out.

From then on, my watchlist would include many of Sarah’s movies. I checked IMDB and saw that Isabel Coixet’s “My Life Without Me” (2003) had a high number of ratings. Even though I don’t like movies where the lead character has a terminal illness, I totally loved it. The acting and the atmosphere were great, and the message was sad but real. Becoming a parent, one of my worries is what I would do in case something like this happened to me. And somewhere there, “Senza Fine” by Gino Paoli, the movie’s soundtrack, is connected with my thoughts.

After this, I watched “The Secret Life of Words” (2005) by the same director and the remake of Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” (2004), maybe the most commercial movie of Sarah. Then, I felt surprised; Sarah was the little girl in the Munchausen movie that I accidentally saw. I had no clue when Sarah started acting. With the dark “Sweet Hereafter” (1997), I finished with the most well-known movies of Sarah.

Watching several other movies of Sarah, one thing that I highly appreciated to her is that she played whatever she wanted. I saw her in “Beowulf & Grendel” (2005), the good version of Beowulf with pre-300 Gerard Butler, in the Icelandic “No Such Thing” (2001) and in a small part in “eXistenZ” (1999) by David Cronenberg.

My trip continued with other movies such as “The I Inside” (2004) and ended with newer films such as “Splice” (2009), a horror thriller that had nothing to envy from “Ex Machina” and “Mr. Nobody” (2009), a movie that “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” fans will love. Sarah’s last acting credit dated back to 2010. Then, she continued her director career that had started with her first movie, “Away from Her”, in 2006.

After one movie and one documentary, Sarah directed “Women Talking” this year. I have no doubt that the movie and Sarah will win dozens of awards, but the truth is that I miss her acting. Sarah, along with Julie Delpy, were the two actresses that made me love and then discover cinema. I hope that her acting career hasn’t ended yet and she will find a project that will attract her.

The photo is from a scene of the movie “Go” (1999)

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