Review of The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) by Tony U — 09 Oct 2008

This movie was an interesting idea about the relationship between two female high school best friends and their encounter with a mass murderer (i.e. similar to the Columbine school massacre) with a parallel fast forward 15 years later to Uma Thurman who is one of the two girls grown up and apparently, despite a husband and beautiful child and a mansion to live in, not to mention is apparently alive after that high school shooting, is still unconvincingly miserable and depressed.

The style used to develop this basic idea was annoying boring and intellectually overthought to the point of excess melodramatic unacceptability.

Yes, I pretty much hated this movie. I wasn't convinced by Uma Thurman's overly sensitive character and I got annoyed by all the dreamlike sequences because it essentially negates anything as being reality. I mean come on, Uma Thurman's character is living in pleasantville and yet in a span of a few hours her daughter almost chokes to death, she nearly rear ends a car, and is then hit by a car; oh yeah, on top of that, her husband actually has time to have an affair; BUT....is there really a 15 years later???? Don't even let me get started.

I liked the chemistry between to Evan Rachel Wood and the girl who played her best friend.

I also felt as if I were in the middle of a school shooting when they were in the bathroom and hear noises. Too bad the director couldn't do anything with it other than repeat the dialogue from time to time and try to put that in context with a future unraveling as the past is unraveled. Yuck...

But other than that, I wasn't keen on the repeated verses nor the obviously "unpredictable ending." Somehow, I intuitively sensed that wild Diana's friend wasn't gonna be the one shot even though it was set up to think she'd be the dead one.

By the time the surprise ending arrived, I was so bored of the movie that the climax was pointless to me and after watching the special features on the DVD, I was even more unimpressed by this pretentious movie.

Again, I'll give a few nuggets for the high school acting, but the "15 years later" fake world of illusion scenes and acting were nothing more than pure tedium.

I also watched the "alternative ending" and that only made me sleepier.