My Life Without Me

My Life Without Me (Mi vida sin mí) is a 2003 film that tells a story of the dying process of a 23 year old woman who has a husband and two daughters. It is based on the book Pretending the Bed Is a Raft by Nanci Kincaid.

The film won many international and festival awards, including:

* the Genie Award (Canada) for Best Actress (Polley)
* the Goya (Spain) for Best Adapted Screenplay (Coixet) and Best Song ("Humans Like You" by Chop Suey)


Ann (Sarah Polley) is a hard-working 23 year old mother with two small daughters, her husband (Scott Speedman) who spends time on and off work, her mother (Deborah Harry) who sees her life as a failure, and her jailed father whom she has not seen in ten years. She works nights as a janitor in a university she could never afford to attend, she lives in a caravan in her mother’s backyard, and she has no aspirations. After she collapses one day, and goes for a medical check-up, her whole world changes, ‘your whole life’s been a dream and it’s only now that you’re waking up’. A shy doctor tells her the morbid news that she has only a few months to live, but she tells no one, using the cover of ‘anemia’. Ann makes a list of ‘things to do before I die’, things that she always wanted to accomplish but never had the time. Although somewhat burdened with her secret, Ann at the same time has a new sense of control.