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MOVIES / ON DVD / THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES
The Life Before Her Eyes

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The Life Before Her Eyes (2008)

26%
25%
73%
N/A
N/A
N/A
26 %
Reviews Counted: 70 Fresh: 18  Rotten:52 Average Rating: 4.6/10
 
Consensus: Despite earnest performances, Life Before Her Eyes is a confusing, painfully overwrought melodrama.
 

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 90 mins

Synopsis: Imaginative, impetuous and wild, Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) can’t wait for her adult life to begin. Whiling away the final days of high school in the lush springtime, Diana tests her limits with sex and drugs as her more conservative friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) watches with concern. But Diana’s... Imaginative, impetuous and wild, Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) can’t wait for her adult life to begin. Whiling away the final days of high school in the lush springtime, Diana tests her limits with sex and drugs as her more conservative friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) watches with concern. But Diana’s aura of invincibility is shattered when a senseless act of violence erupts at school, forever changing the lives of the two best friends. Fifteen years later, a grown Diana (Uma Thurman) is still trying to come to terms with the traumatic events of that fateful day. On the surface, the adult Diana has made a picture perfect life for herself. She’s still living in the sleepy Connecticut suburb she grew up in with her husband Paul, a professor at the local college. Her beautiful young daughter, Emma, is smart and creative, and possesses a fiercely independent streak reminiscent of her mother. But all is not well—as the anniversary of her adolescent trauma approaches, the darkness that Diana has tried to escape closes in. Meanwhile, her husband has become increasingly absent, her daughter has taken to hiding from teachers, and worst of all, Diana’s own grip on reality is starting to falter. Moving seamlessly through both stages of Diana’s evolution, THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES delves deep into the crossroads that we all face—where a simple decision can change the course of everything to come, and where a lifetime can be encapsulated in a single moment. With THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES, Vadim Perelman, director of the acclaimed HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, has established himself as one of America’s greatest young directors of serious, probing drama. --© Magnolia [More]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, Gabrielle Brennan

Director: Vadim Perelman
Screenwriter: Emil Stern
Producer: Vadim Perelman, Aimee Peyronnet, Anthony Katagas
Composer: James Horner

Reviews

 
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Full Review | comment Comment
09/29/07
Screen International
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3.5/4

It's an underrated, and horrific little dramatic thriller that twists the noose at every turn...

Full Review | comment Comment
06/29/08
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed
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N/A

The Life Before Her Eyes has the core of an inventive narrative and a twist that probably worked better as a literary device.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/08/08
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org
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4/5

...slowly builds an emotional power that takes us by surprise...

Full Review | comment Comment
05/28/08
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review
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3.5/4

Just ignore the critics -- in this case, we don't know what we're talking about.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/28/08
Matt Brunson
Creative Loafing
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3/4

Studio movies rarely depict Christians as fallible, thoughtful people who've been strengthened by faith but don't take it for granted.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/23/08
Lawrence Toppman
Charlotte Observer
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2/5

The twist is exactly what you think it is, and it pretty much invalidates any emotional investment you can work up before it arrives.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/15/08
Josh Bell
Las Vegas Weekly
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D+

Should my life flash before my eyes before my demise, I am certain that movie scenes will appear. I only ask that this movie not be included in the edit.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/15/08
Nathaniel Rogers
Film Experience
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4/5

(The Life Before Her Eyes) is one of those films that you will walk out of just feeling very shaken up and disturbed.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/14/08
Kevin McCarthy
BDK Reviews (CBS Radio)
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1/4

That the ending doesn't play fair with the audience is a misdemeanor; the felony is that the filmmakers don't seem to realize what an ugly moral statement they're making with it.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)
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2/4

A 'Carnival of Souls' for Mitch Albom readers...

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
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76/100

... not so much a bad movie as an infuriating one, a pretty empty thing that wants desperately to be loved for its deep thoughts.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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C+

Director Vadim Perelman...makes a misstep with the well crafted but flawed The Life Before Here Eyes.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/05/08
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews
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D

[A] confused, morally queasy, self-important mess.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
Marc Mohan
Oregonian
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B

In the end, Life is a challenging success, with Wood's performance again affirming her status among the young generation of actors, and Perelman's vision promising more intrigue to come.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
Tom Long
Detroit News
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2/5

[J]ust when you think you're getting an interesting movie about women and their travails and triumphs, the whiffs of a Shocking! Twist! Ending! begin to appear."

Full Review | comment Comment
05/01/08
Alonso Duralde
MSNBC
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2/4

And then, THUD. Like an Acme anvil, the ending smashes everything to smithereens and you're left as discouraged as Wile E. Coyote.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/01/08
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star
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N/A

Diana pays for her bad choices perpetually, in large part through her self-comparisons to M, whose piety she alternately teases and reveres.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/30/08
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters
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3/10

Full of fussed-over significant images and delicately planned interlocking narrative motives, and it's about as subtle and clever as somebody clubbing you over the head with a folding chair

Full Review | comment Comment
04/29/08
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy
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2/4

What you get, in the end, is a pair of fine performances (from Thurman and Wood) and a technically well-made film that arrives at a foregone conclusion.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/25/08
Jeff Shannon
Seattle Times
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