10. Over six months until the Oscars. Already three awards under its belt.
 
9. Sarah Polley has never failed to capture human emotion unlike any other actress on screen. To see her bring that ability and understanding to the writer/director’s chair will almost certainly confirm that she is one of the most talented young filmmakers today.

8. Alice Munroe’s stories have captured readers’ hearts and critics’ awards all throughout her writing career. With Munroe’s unique story of an elderly couple dealing with Alzheimer’s behind it, Away from Her is sure to win hearts and awards on film as well.

7. Polley is only 28, yet she chose to make her directing debut about as far away from her age group’s standard high school/college-age first flick as she could. If we needed another sign that Polley’s intelligence and talent are far and above her contemporaries, this is it.

6. Julie Christy. Michael Murphy. Gordon Pinset. Olympia Dukakis. Over 150 years of acting experience. Two Oscars. Thirty-seven awards. Twenty-four nominations. A core cast of combined talent and experience that cannot help but prompt even more awards buzz.

5. Because love stories are more than the romantic meetings of youngsters and the sentimental remembrances of the elderly.

4. Because baggage is not just something left over from past relationships; it is a constantly-generating shared possession we must acknowledge and work through with every new day and new situation we and our partners encounter.

3. Because the presence of love never means the absence of struggle, hardship, mistakes, and doubt. It means deeming a relationship worth navigating through whatever journey of change, forgiveness, or reconciliation is necessary to continue on in love.

2. Because the reality of Alzheimer’s is one with which all too many of us are familiar. And those of us who have ever been close to it know that its story is about more than one person, its journey one that travels back in time to encompasses far more than present suffering, and its effects and our responses an unmapped territory with no instructions for those who must travel its course.

1. Because the truest expressions of love are very often as excruciatingly painful as they are extraordinarily beautiful. Their manifestation—the self-sacrifice of one for the good of the one he or she loves the most, even if the fulfillment of that good, the sacrifice required, and the expression of that love involves letting go of the very person for whom we would do anything.