The Life Before Her Eyes

Evan Rachel Wood stars as Diana – a troublesome high school girl caught up in the most horrific tragedy most of us can ever imagine. A fellow student has gone on a rampage at her high school, and she is trapped in a bathroom with her best friend, Maureen (Eva Amurri).

Then, The Life Before Her Eyes fast forwards 15 years. Diana now is played by Uma Thurman, and she is struggling with her emotions and mental health on the 15th anniversary of the event.

Can she make it through this day?

Will she go to the memorial service in honor of the victims?

What happened to her friends?

The problem with The Life Before Her Eyes is twofold. First, it doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere. Director Vadim Perelman relies too much on the inherent drama in the situation and how we feel about incidents like this than the actual drama the characters are facing. The audience starts to understand some of the regrets Diana feels, the happy times she remembers and even the arguments she might want to take back, but for what purpose? We go back and forth between events in Diana’s life now and what happened on that horrible day, but we don’t see enough connections between the two, which leads to the other problem.

When you start to see what connections do exist (and they start to come together much too late in the movie), you begin to realize The Life Before Her Eyes is unfair to the audience. Perelman and writer Emil Stern (based on the novel by Laura Kasischke) rush to a finale that feels contrived when it becomes clear they better do something to end the movie. Perelman and Stern need to do a better job building to the conclusion, rather than imposing it on The Life Before Her Eyes, especially since we can think of better ways to accomplish the same type of ending.

Amurri, Thurman and Wood all put in good performances, but the rest of the movie doesn’t make it worth seeing them.

The Life Before Her Eyes is rated R for violent and disturbing content, language and brief drug use