Review of The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) by Elisa L — 24 Aug 2008

The word "pretentious" gets batted around a lot by people who don't use it correctly. It does not mean, "This work of art requires that you think a lot, and it probably isn't much fun to watch it, so only arrogant people and posers will claim to like it." When really it means, "This work of art believes that it is much smarter than it actually is. It "pretends" at being something that it is not, namely intelligent. When in fact, its merely ponderous and a monkey could probably understand it." Thus, The Life Before Her Eyes, is a flawless example of a truly pretentious movie. It is full of fussed-over significant images and a bevy of delicately planned interlocking narrative motives, and it's about as subtle and clever as somebody clubbing you over the head with a baseball-bat.

Sure, both Evan and Uma gave good performances, and yes the film has the core of an inventive narrative and a twist that probably worked better as a literary device... But as a whole the film has a contrived emotional build up that fails to deliver the necessary punch it so desperately wants in the end.