TORONTO—Geneviève Bujold has a history of doing things her own way, so it makes sense that she would be drawn to Still Mine, Canadian director Michael McGowan’s film—based on a true story—about the steadfast love of a couple determined to age on their own terms.

A Montrealer by birth, Bujold has played leading lady opposite Yves Montand and Jean-Paul Belmondo, Clint Eastwood and Alec Guinness, and she was Oscar-nominated for her role opposite Richard Burton in Anne of the Thousand Days. But her mercurial personality has led her to forge her own path, and she has become something of a rarity on today’s screens. (Little-known fact: she was the first Capt. Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager but quit during the pilot due to media exposure and the long hours required.) Bujold, who has lived in Malibu, California, is known to mostly handpick roles in small, independent films. So her leading role in Still Mine is a treat.

Bujold’s message, which the 71-year-old actor relayed during an interview at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, is one that her filmography backs up: walk away from that which you do not love.

“At this age, I am incapable of doing things I don’t want to do,” she said. “I live modestly, so that I’m never forced to do a job to pay a mortgage, and I don’t own anything. I simply do not do what’s not essential. This is because I have realized the secret of life: all the external decorations are less important than giving yourself the gift of time.

“That being said, I am so grateful when a great script and great roles come my way, because I need them. My well-being depends on working, to some extent,” she added, her eyes twinkling.

Set in beautiful St. Martins, New Brunswick, Still Mine is such a script: a love story about the importance of time and of doing things your own way.

Craig (James Cromwell) and Irene (Bujold) come up against bureaucrats when Craig decides to build a new house for his wife of 60 years, who is rapidly losing her memory. Craig’s father, a shipbuilder, taught Craig everything he knows about building, and he follows the time-tested way: he mills his own wood from trees grown on his family’s acreage and begins to raise the frame of a small, stairless cabin on top of a hill against the scarlet sunsets on the Bay of Fundy.

But without the proper permits and stamped lumber, he quickly runs afoul of the local authorities, who haul him into court and threaten him with jail if he refuses to cease construction.

Certainly, this sounds like your typical codger-with-a-grudge movie. But Cromwell and, especially, Bujold are excellent as nonstereotypical Maritime oldsters. As a result, the film is a lovely meditation on what really matters when nothing but love is important anymore.

“I liked the script because it doesn’t treat old people like they’re all the same or tell them what to do: be impeccable, remain the same, and never die,” Bujold said.

“I picked the film because it has a quiet way of growing on you,” she noted. “It has a way of slowly, gently becoming implanted in your heart.”