It's sad to see such subtle, wrenchingly emotional work expended on such trifling material.
The Life Before Her Eyes (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:91
Fresh:22
Rotten:69
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: Despite earnest performances, Life Before Her Eyes is a confusing, painfully overwrought melodrama.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for violent and disturbing content, language and brief drug use
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:27-03-2009
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... 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]
Starring: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, Oscar Isaac
Starring: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, Oscar Isaac, Gabrielle Brennan
Director: Vadim Perelman
Director: Vadim Perelman
Screenwriter: Emil Stern
Producer: Vadim Perelman, Aimee Peyronnet, Anthony Katagas
Composer: James Horner
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Reviews for The Life Before Her Eyes
What began as tragedy ends as mere sleight -- and turns a trusting audience into dupes.
An overwrought and patently offensive anti-abortion drama from the director of the accomplished House of Sand and Fog. Director Vadim Perelman doesn't play fair.
What this heavy-handed film mainly has to endure is a clunky story structure and an ending that wasn't original when it was seen four decades ago on The Twilight Zone.
[Director] Perelman applies a rigorous visual beauty to this thin gimmick of a movie.
Director Vadim Perelman is big on slo-mo lyrical effects and confusing time shifts, making the movie unnecessarily arty and detracting from what could have been a searing psychological study.
What this film knows about grief, you could put in a haiku. (It’d read: “Death sucks, like really/Nothing else matters, ever/Therapy—what’s that?”)
Perelman's ambition...is admirable; he's obviously trying to tell this story in a distinctive and challenging way....Unfortunately, he doesn't quite pull off the trick.
As it plods along decorously, you have the sense of reading a poetic essay in which every image and metaphor is hammered too neatly in place.
The roles are superbly realized by Wood and Thurman, but the real backbone of the picture is Perelman, who takes great care to weave the small tragedies into a wounded whole.
Paints a compelling and thought-provoking picture of not only school violence, but violence in general, and the trickle-down effect that a single moment in time can have on one's whole future.
The dread is thick and the atmosphere is so heavy that every simple car ride or bedtime story seems like it's happening on the crumbling edge of a lonely cliff.
The final twist ... only proves that the rest of the movie wasn't so confusing and irritating by accident -- it was designed that way.
Director Vadim Perelman blends two powerful performances into a seamless whole, giving equal time to the dreamy sensuality of adolescence and the crushing weight of adulthood.
Moviegoers may mistake The Life Before Her Eyes for an unduly long L’Oréal commercial featuring softly lit film stars moving languidly with swinging hair through overbearingly premonitory weather.
Building up to what’s supposed to be a serious moral dilemma, the noisy final act borders on incoherence.
Damn if the title The Life Before Her Eyes doesn’t give away director Vadel Perelman’s entire conceit!
I liked director Vadim Perelman’s provocative first film, House of Sand and Fog, but this one is a mess.
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