Sarah Polley has cemented herself as a solid indie actress, and is beloved by Canadian audiences who first got to know her on Road to Avonlea. But it turns out Canada’s Sweetheart is a complete reduction of the multitudes she contains. Polley delivered one of the strongest directorial debuts in recent memory six years ago with Away From Her, a devastating love tragedy, earning her an Oscar nomination for writing. Her sophomoric effort, Take This Waltz, was also a resounding critical success. The key pervading theme of her work seems to be that all love stories are ultimately tragic, and the source of this feeling may be traceable after seeing her personal documentary Stories We Tell, set for theatrical release this year. It’s the finest documentary to come out since maybe Exit Through the Gift Shop, and bends the genre in equally interesting ways. Her movies are so deceptively simple but vastly complex, intellectually and emotionally, and continually surprising. Oh, and she’s 34 years old. Chances are she’ll only get better with age, which is hard to imagine because she’s already the best.
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