Our Sarah Polley Connection

Back in September, when we were choosing films to see at TIFF, I remarked to The Husband how much I wanted to see Sarah Polley's adaptation of Women Talking. I have been a fan of Ms. Polley's work for many years, and I was excited to see how she interpreted a Miriam Toews novel. Her compassionate direction and scriptwriting in the film Away From Her furthered my belief that she is one of the most gifted filmmakers of this generation. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only TIFF-goer with that idea. Women Talking was a hot ticket in Toronto, and we were forced to wait for a wider release. 

In the interim, Women Talking has been a favourite on the movie awards circuit this season. While Ms. Polley was ignored for her direction and her stellar cast has been shut out from acting honours/nominations, the film is still being talked about with awe and admiration. When it was finally released for streaming this week on International Women's Day (coincidence?), we jumped at the opportunity to view it. We absolutely loved it. It is a fabulous film.

When I told The Husband that the movie was finally within our grasp, he told me something I had never heard him say before. He told me how much he liked Sarah Polley's work and how much he would like to meet her in person. Now, you need to understand just how unusual it is for The Husband to say something like this. He is a very private and quiet person who has zero interest in celebrities. This is the same man who sat next to Eugene Levy on a plane and didn't say more than "hello." How is that even possible? When I dug a bit deeper, he explained. 

In the fall of 2012, we saw Ms. Polley's very personal and brilliant documentary Stories We Tell. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It looks at the relationship between Polley's parents, including the revelation that the filmmaker is the product of her mother's extramarital affair with another man. The movie is interspersed with interviews with her siblings, other relatives, and family friends. She reads from Michael Polley's memoir (the father who raised her), and she includes recreations of life events with a gauzy lens and actors playing the crucial roles. It is a fantastic movie, and we both walked out of it in tears.

The Husband failed to tell me at the time that this film was a catalyst for him. The fall of 2012 was also a hugely important time in his life. His father had just been diagnosed with a catastrophic illness that would ultimately claim his life. It was during that difficult time, my husband decided to dig into long-buried family secrets of his own that he had long suspected but could never confront. Sarah Polley's film prompted him to make a phone call that would change many lives. Without judgment, The Husband went on his own journey to learn about the secrets his dad had been keeping for decades. He desperately wanted answers to questions that had been eating at him for years, and, most of all, he wanted to know if this new-found sister and her mother wanted anything to do with him. It was a complicated unwinding of stories, familial relationships, interviews, phone calls, lunches, and confrontations. These aren't my stories to tell, and unfortunately, all of the principles are gone now, but I will say that it does have a happy ending in that The Husband is so excited to have his sister in his life and is anxious to continue building the relationship. I never knew that Sarah Polley pushed him to make that happen.

Ms. Polley does live in Toronto and is active in the community both artistically and politically. We don't want to stalk her online, it simply isn't who we are, but if anybody knows how to get a message to her, The Husband would like to say thank you. Me? I am really rooting for her on Sunday at the Oscars.