My Life Without Me

23-year-old Ann (Sarah Polley) lives with her husband and two daughters in a trailer in her mother's (Deborah Harry) garden. When she learns that she is terminally ill and only has a few months to live, she decides not to tell anyone and writes a list of things she wants to do: Record birthday greetings for her daughters on audio cassettes, sort out her troubled relationship with her mother, visit her father in prison, have one last picnic on the beach, start a love affair to see how it feels ... Set in the working class suburbs of Vancouver, this drama told in relatively sober fashion was Catalan director Isabel Coixet's breakthrough. She also worked with Harry on Elegy (2008). (hjf)