The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) Reviews

• A spoiler to explain some of the negative comments

  moute-nicolas2008-09-17

  *** MAJOR Spoiler **** The following is a significant spoiler, but important to understand the movie, but also many of the negative comments herein. Surprisingly, and despite the fairly obvious title, most people have not understood the plot. The movie is about a girl that imagines her future life in the few minutes before being shot. So the whole part of the movie where you see old Diana is in fact a young girl's imagination hence some of the critic about the character of old Diana. Furthermore, because there is not 15 years difference between the two periods, you do see on purpose mobile phones or flat screens in the "young days". For the rest a very good movie in my opinion.

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• Gorgeous to watch and hopefully will inspire conversation

  bratkievich2008-05-03

  I don't usually write or like reactive comments but in some cases I feel so strongly about previous comments that I can't keep quiet. And there are serious spoilers ahead. "Copycat"? Last time I checked, "copycat" is used when you imitate slavishly, you just reproduce some previous thing. Now, if someone can't see the differences between "The Sixth Sense," "Elephant," and "The Life Before Her Eyes," maybe that person should watch more movies before writing. Taking another idea and putting a different spin on it has been done forever, since art began, in paintings, music, literature, all arts. That's creativity, when you put something personal on an old story. Now that person might think that we only need one film about a high school shooting and its consequences. We already have "Elephant;" why do we need more? It's not like we keep having shootings, right? I would also be really sad if I thought that the subjects treated in this movie are only interesting to academics. "Overly-convenient plot points"? Well, it's all her imagination of her own life before dying. You can't expect realism when it all has this dreamy, life passing before your eyes feeling (with a clever twist). Of course the reminders will keep popping up and flooding her consciousness. Besides, since when all films have to be realistic? On one level, the film represents the guilt and remorse experienced by someone who keeps trying to forget a traumatic incident. But sometimes the hardest you try, the more things keep reminding you of it. The film could have interwoven a brief scene imitating a shock of memory, instead it presents it from an external source, which is how you sometimes feel the memory of traumatic events, as something that is coming from outside, something that you can't prevent or avoid, like a radio that tells us what we've been doing the best effort to put out of our minds. "A LOT of contrived pathos"? It's about a person dying!!!!! "An exploitation of columbine"? See comment above about "coypcat." "Metaphor-laden"? Amazingly, it's only the professional critics who are invoking this one. I really don't understand critics anymore. It's true that speaking plainly has its advantages. But since when do all films have to follow the same rules? Some artists thrive using metaphors. Let them use them! Or maybe they actually are annoyed because they understand the metaphors and we all know that the more unintelligible a film is, the better. Especially if we DO think that we understand them, because that means that we're part of the intelligent elite that can appreciate those films. "Confusing" and "tiring flashback-flash forward method"? The film follows the pathway of memory, which goes through associations (metonymies, metaphors, repetitions, similarities) and not chronology. Now, wouldn't it be so much less hard if all the past were first and the future later? I guess we're too intelligent so we're above the metaphors but putting pieces in the right order is haaard! Finally, the jewel: "An overwrought and patently offensive anti-abortion drama"? Clearly, this is coming from a man (Lou Lumenick, New York Post). And he might not have any friends that have had abortions. I'm pro-choice but I know that all of my friends who did it had feelings of remorse (not guilt, although that could be a component). What do you think? That a woman just pretends that it never happened, that she never questions if she could have done something differently. That doesn't mean you're making an anti-abortion diatribe. It's just dealing with a hard, traumatic memory. I'm so sorry that this critic thinks that talking about those feelings implies a moral choice. Talk about manicheism. I'm not saying that the film is flawless. Maybe it is too precious, even though it has a good excuse for it. It's a collection of idealized moments of past and future passing through someone's imagination. You could certainly find fault in the way that Evan Rachel Wood is sexualized; I mean, the camera really loves her and it's clearly from a male perspective. Others might be able to live with such obvious exponent of "the male gaze."

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• An intensely beautiful picture

  markmaker272007-09-09

  I had the privilege of seeing this film at its World Premiere this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival. From the very opening sequence, this picture draws you in with its sheer beauty. The cinematography is terrific and at some points even terrifying (in a breath taking way) but what impressed me most was the dialog. Everything seemed so real, which played up every detail to me and made the picture all the more engrossing. Uma Thurman is top notch in this but i believe that Evan Rachel Wood really makes it because honestly, who else could we expect to play the teen angst better than her? The relationship between Eva Amurri's Maureen and Wood's Diana is so realistic in every situation and much of that credit has to go to Emil Stern's adaptation. There are so many themes that run deep throughout this movie, and the ever pressing scare of school shootings makes this hit home really really hard. This is an amazing film that will touch every single emotion and leave you thinking about it for days. Go see this movie whenever you get the chance. It is an intensely beautiful and moving film and most definitely one of the best I have seen so far this year.

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• A compromised film of two parts

  tigerfish502010-04-12

  The narrative of 'Life Before Her Eyes' switches backwards and forwards between two episodes in the life of Diana McFee. The first is her teenage summer prior to a Colombine-style high school massacre - while the second occurs twenty years later, as her town prepares to remember this tragic event's anniversary. In the high school time-line, Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) hangs out with best friend Maureen (Eva Amurri), alternately discussing future plans and current boyfriends. Their fine performances are captured in radiant dreamlike cinematography which intensifies a sense of foreboding as they approach their fateful encounter with a homicidal armed schoolmate. In the later sequences, a 30-something Diana (Uma Thurman) is embroiled in another crisis, with her marriage under strain and a precocious daughter exhibiting rebellious tendencies similar to Diana's student behavior. Unfortunately these segments are handicapped by a banal story-line and Thurman's lifeless performance. By the end of the film all the loose ends have been neatly resolved, but the climax is ruined by a plot twist which contradicts all the previous character development. Apparently this flawed finale was forced on the producers at Thurman's insistence.

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• excellent

  bill-20202008-04-17

  The sophisticated Perelman/Kasischke sensibilities will not be for all markets; this is essentially a rather highbrow film, with a surprise ending which will spoil it for some who want their movies to be straightforward, but which is essential to its philosophical heart. Thurman is outstanding as the older, pensive Diana, and Wood perhaps even better as the self-confident, rebellious younger version. Perelman's direction captures the dreamy lyricism contrasting with a sometimes brutal realism that is also found in Kasischke's beautiful and poetic 2002 novel. There won't be many better, genuinely adult movies this year, and most likely it will be ignored.

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