Everyone’s noted the parallels between Sarah Polley‘s Away From Her, which is about an Alzheimer’s-afflicted older woman (Julie Christie) gently rebuffing her husband as she falls in love with another man (a syndrome common to sufferers of this disease), and the recently reported story about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor‘s Alzheimer’s- afflicted husband John falling for another woman.

Sandra Day O’Connor and her husband John March 2004

Gordon Pinsent, Julie Christie in Away From Her.

This will almost certainly push Academy members who haven’t seen Away From Her to pop the DVD in. It will also boost Christie’s chances of nabbing a Best Actress Oscar. (Not to sound insensitive or anything, but how can it not?) There was a feeling a few weeks ago that things were looking a little iffy because of Christie’s stated aversion to (cough) “campaigning.”