Sarah Polley Ann

Mark Ruffalo Lee

Julian Richings Dr. Thompson

Scott Speedman Don

Deborah Harry Mom

Written and directed by Isablel Coixet. A romance and drama. Rated R for language. Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 106 minutes

My life has been a dream, now I'm waking up

Ann (Sarah Polley) is a 23-year-old married mother of two young girls, who learns that she has a fatal tumor that will run its course in two to three months. At 23 no one is prepared in the slightest to plan the future of their spouse and children without them. This type of news is analogous to films you see about young men, at home in one frame of film and in the next they are on the battlefield thousands of miles away, with bullets whizzing by and mortar shells exploding around them. The difference here is that Ann is at a higher risk of death than that soldier in the hot zone.

So normal, her life so ordinary, you are quickly caught up in Ann's dilemma. You have a sense of understanding each character. You pull for all of them, even though they have different agendas, which in some cases conflict with one another. Ann's husband Don (Scott Speedman) is a supportive, happy-go-lucky, responsible father, who loves his wife and kids and is thrilled to have a steady job as a pool installer for the next year. They live in a trailer in her mother's backyard, and we soon learn why Mom (Deborah Harry) and Ann have a strained relationship. Mom is in a permanent funk because her husband, Ann's dad, is in jail and she's stuck in her lost dreams and seems unable to get on with her life and change the things she can.

Don thinks that the reason Ann fainted recently is because she might be pregnant. When she learns that her life is nearly over, Ann decides not to "burden" her husband, children and mother with caring for her over the next few months.

As Ann begins to regroup from her visits with Dr. Thompson (Julian Richings), she goes to a café where she first sees Lee (Mark Ruffalo) as she works on her list of "Things to Do Before I Die." On that list are items such as "say what I think," and "make love with another man, just to see what's it's like." To this point her love life has been with Don, who was the first and only man she has ever kissed. Some very moving scenes are tape recordings she makes of birthday greetings for her daughters, for each year until they are 18.

At a laundromat, Ann runs into Lee again and he gives her a book with his phone number on the inside cover. She calls him; after all, she wants to return the book. While she is looking for "something" from another man, Lee is trying to get over a busted relationship with another woman. Though he doesn't know of her fate, Lee is very supportive of Ann. This adulterous affair is not about lust, but wanting to live a full life when there is not enough time to work things out.

An entertaining though sobering film, "My Life Without Me" makes us aware that we walk a fine line between the routine and the devastating, constantly. We understand Ann's feelings while those around her, who love her, don't know the tidal wave that has hit her life. She chooses, with a determined strength, to stand alone in the wake of that wave.