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The Life Before Her Eyes (2008)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 4.4/10
Reviews Counted: 93
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 71

Despite earnest performances, Life Before Her Eyes is a confusing, painfully overwrought melodrama.

Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 22
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 15

Despite earnest performances, Life Before Her Eyes is a confusing, painfully overwrought melodrama.

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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 7,895

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Movie Info

Based on author Laura Kasischke's novel The Life Before Her Eyes, House of Sand and Fog director Vadim Perelman's provocative study of memory, morality, and conscience stars Uma Thurman as the guilt-ridden survivor of a harrowing, Columbine-like high-school shooting. To any outsider, Diana (played as a young girl by actress Evan Rachel Wood) and Maureen (Eva Amurri) were polar opposites; Diana was always questioning authority, while Maureen quietly went about fulfilling the expectations of her

R, 1 hr. 30 min.

Mystery & Suspense, Drama

Directed By: Vadim Perelman

Written By: Emil Stern

In Theaters: Sep 8, 2007 Wide

On DVD: Aug 19, 2008

Box Office:$0.2M

Magnolia Pictures

The Life Before Her Eyes Trailer & Photos

More Photos (9)

Cast

Uma Thurman
Diana (adult)
Evan Rachel Wood
Diana (Teen)
Eva Amurri
Maureen
Brett Cullen
Paul
Oscar Isaac
Marcus
Gabrielle Brennan
Emma
Jack Gilpin
Mr. McCleod
Maggie Lacey
Amanda (adult)
John Magaro
Michael Patrick
Lynn Cohen
Sister Beatrice
Nathalie Nicole Paulding
Amanda (teen)
Molly Price
Diana's Mother
Oliver Solomon
Detective
Anna Renee Moore
Blonde Student
Isabel Keating
Maureen's Mother
Adam Chanler-Berat
Ryan
Tanner Cohen
Nate Witt
Aldous Davidson
Diana's Student
Ann McDonough
Librarian
Sharon Washington
Nurse
Kia Jam
Doctor
J.T. Arbogast
Male Reporter
Jewel Donohue
Mother at Shooting
Shayna Levine
Page (Teen)

Critic Reviews for The Life Before Her Eyes

All Critics (94) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (71)

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.

May 2, 2008 Full Review Source: Detroit News

| Comment

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

Thoroughly thought through and photographed with imagination and psychological penetration, it's the product of a very shrewd directorial hand.

April 25, 2008 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle

| Comment

Mick LaSalle

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

Perelman never overcomes the disjuncture of having two familiar actresses play the same grown character, and despite the endless crosscutting, the two halves settle respectively into ghoulish foreboding and murky psychological drama.

April 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader

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J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

The Life Before Her Eyes might offer a fresh perspective on aborted dreams, but its insights are buried under stale, inflated moviemaking.

April 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Boston Globe

| Comment

Janice Page

Boston Globe

Top Critic

Not a film entirely devoid of virtue, though it comes closer to that mark than any movie I've seen this year--closer than any movie I'd care to see in any year.

April 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times

| Comment

Rob Nelson

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

There are two very fine performances here -- Wood's and Amurri's -- but they're not strong enough to rise above the metaphor-laden script.

April 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

| Comment

Steven Rea

Philadelphia Inquirer

Top Critic

A hopelessly overblown melodrama, which oversteps its mark with pretensions of narrative complexity and social currency

August 8, 2009 Full Review Source: indieWIRE

| Comment

Leo Goldsmith

indieWIRE

[Perelman] over-explains everything at the end with a montage of repeated scenes that ensures you never need see this film more than once.

August 7, 2009 Full Review Source: Little White Lies

| Comment

Anton Bitel

Little White Lies

In the hands of the director Vadim Perelman, it becomes a jumble of dramatic scenes and disorientating flashbacks that merge into a confusing, stream-of-consciousness narrative, and the twist, when it comes, is a complete cheat.

March 31, 2009 Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK)

| Comment

Peter Whittle

Sunday Times (UK)

An American high school drama with a tiresomely familiar twist.

March 31, 2009 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]

| Comment

Philip French

Observer [UK]

A thoughtful, if sentimental, semi-successful attempt to craft a drama about life and choice around the difficult subject matter of a school shooting.

March 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4

| Comment

Daniel Etherington

Film4

The movie's relentless dream-like quality could induce slack-jawed wonder...or chronic narcolepsy depending how receptive the viewer is to non-linear narrative and super-stylised flights of fancy.

March 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Sky Movies

| Comment

Tim Evans

Sky Movies

A touching tale from director Vadim Perelman with a surprise ending that leaves you plenty to ponder.

March 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Express

| Comment

Allan Hunter

Daily Express

A sudsy potboiler with a twist you can see coming from the title.

March 28, 2009 Full Review Source: thelondonpaper

| Comment

Neil Smith

thelondonpaper

Part Elephant, part Jacob's Ladder, moments of bruising power are dulled by overwrought symbolism and a baffling wrap-up.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Total Film

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Rob James

Total Film

Ambition and accomplishment are aeons apart in this would-be meaningful drama.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Time Out

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Trevor Johnston

Time Out

Surely the point of a "twist" is that it should slot into the plot with a satisfying click, not that it should invalidate 50 per cent of what came before it?

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK]

| Comment

Wendy Ide

Times [UK]

Vadim Perelman's drama is both tasteful and tedious. With its honeyed visuals, affluent air and coy portents of disaster, it's like an advert for private health care played out on an endless loop.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK]

| Comment

Xan Brooks

Guardian [UK]

The film's dogged repetition of its pivotal scene has to go somewhere, but it's enslaved to a narrative conceit even M Night Shyamalan might find a trifle gimmicky.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph

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Tim Robey

Daily Telegraph

Absorbing.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Sunday Mirror [UK]

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Mark Adams

Sunday Mirror [UK]

Flitting back and forth in time, it's too confusing to entertain, while Wood and Thurman look nothing like one another, making for a disjointed and often dire experience.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK]

| Comment

David Edwards

Daily Mirror [UK]

Poorly conceived, badly written and ultimately ridiculous drama with a jaw-droppingly crass twist ending that backfires horribly.

March 27, 2009 Full Review Source: ViewLondon

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Matthew Turner

ViewLondon

The ending is as baffling as anything preceding it - giving rise to a genre conflict situation.

March 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Teletext

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Victor Olliver

Teletext

THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES starts off as superficial, sentimental trite, then turns into an incoherent journey into God knows what.

September 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Sin Magazine

| Comment

Austin Kennedy

Sin Magazine

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Life Before Her Eyes

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This film reminded me of 'Stay'. But while I liked 'Stay', I didn't like this one much. The story is told in an unconventional way, and that's what goes against this movie. It was told in a very complex and confusing way, which while maybe smart and brilliant, but wasn't a fair decision in this case. The ambiguity

February 17, 2011

familiar stranger

Super Reviewer

It's funny how insignificant teenage years seem when you're actually living them. Culture and media tell us that they are the defining years, that we will all look back someday and see them as the turning points in our lives. I'm not totally sure I buy into it, but apparently Vadim Perelman does. We see the days and

July 30, 2010