"I wanted never to be away from her," says Grant of his wife, Fiona. "She had the spark of life."

	Michael Gibson Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent combine for magnificent performances in "Away From Her." Click photo for larger image. 'Away from Her' Director: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Murphy. Rating: PG-13 for some strong language. Web site: http://www.memory-catcher.net/ Related article 'Away From Her' actor finds meaning in role

In her mesmerizing story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain," Alice Munro describes Fiona as a tall, narrow-shouldered woman of 70 with long hair and legs, "still upright and trim, direct and vague, sweet and ironic." Subtract four years, and it fits Julie Christie. So does the role of Fiona, suffused with Christie's own sweet irony.

The spark so beloved of Grant (Gordon Pinsent) is dimming. It starts with the need for yellow Post-its, labeling the contents of kitchen drawers. ... One day she absently puts away a frying pan in the freezer. ... Then she can't quite recall whether they moved to their current house one or two years ago. The correct answer is 20.

When does natural forgetfulness become Alzheimer's? How do you stop denying and start facing a fate arguably worse than death, in the knowledge it's only going to get worse? What happens to the love that atrophies with the memory?

Many artistic and therapeutic treatments have tried to address that agony, but none better than Sarah Polley's "Away From Her," an elegant translation of Munro's precise prose to photoplay.

"I think I'm beginning to disappear," Fiona says softly at the outset and onset. But this is no mere lugubrious pathology of a disease. It concerns, just as much, the secret injuries and infidelities of marriage, the consigning of a loved one to a "home," the bizarre bondings of the elderly and the despair of the spouse left behind.

Grant's first shock is that he isn't allowed to visit her for the first 30-day adjustment period. "We find that if they're left on their own, they usually end up happy as clams," he is told. With an absence of sentimentality and a presence of humor, actress-turned-director Polley captures the "friendly fascism" of nursing-home existence that makes you laugh and cry at the same time.

She likewise captures magnificent performances from terrific actors at their peak. If you can't imagine the screen goddess of John Schlesinger's "Darling" and David Lean's "Dr. Zhivago" playing a white-haired woman drifting into dementia, the still breathtakingly beautiful Christie will convince you.

"I'm going ... but I'm not gone," she murmurs, her wistfully radiant half-smile undiminished. It is one of the truly great faces of the cinema's century. With trademark slouchy walk, wandering outdoors in a ski jacket, she looks boyishly like Garbo in long shot while, in close-up, you're never sure if the "Vacancy" or "No Vacancy" sign behind the watery blue eyes will be lit from one day -- or hour -- to the next.

Pinsent's eyes, meanwhile, reveal the palpable anguish of watching her disintegration. There is one particularly amazing moment -- a tribute to the subtlety of this film's writing, directing and acting -- during his first allowed visitation at the nursing home: Disturbed at first by her obsessive concern with wheelchair-bound Aubrey (Michael Murphy), Grant is relieved when she finally turns her attention to him. She seems happy and healthy enough as they chat -- until she says she must get back to Aubrey, politely disengaging with, "You'll get used to it." Then and only then does he see that Fiona doesn't recognize him. She thinks he's a new patient.

Murphy, by the way, gives a devastating performance -- without ever uttering a word. Olympia Dukakis as his wife looks typically weary but amazingly young in her supporting role, trying to make a connection with Grant even as she's trying to pass off store-bought cookies as homemade. Ron Hewat is hilarious in a bit part as a former play-by-play hockey announcer who is now narrating his rest-home life.

The dreamy, snowy Canadian locations around Kitchener, Ontario, are a perfect setting for this winter's tale of late life, the snow-covered fields reflecting the white blanket of forgetfulness slowly covering Christie.

A couple of quibbles: Why have some dumb pretty-young-thing play Christie in flashbacks, when a few doctored clips from the past would've done the trick a thousand times better? And one hates to say it, but there's something awkward here, as always, about scenes depicting geriatric passion.

Nevertheless, this is a wrenchingly beautiful elegy celebrating the last sad tango of two lovers. Polley has transferred her insight from acting to directing -- an extraordinarily moving, tender feature debut for a 28-year-old, heralding a bright future in that capacity.

At the end of a long day's journey into the Alzheimer nightmare, "All we can aspire to is a little bit of grace," says Fiona. This film provides a great deal of it.