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Movies / Upcoming / The Life Before Her Eyes
The Life Before Her Eyes

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The Life Before Her Eyes (2008)

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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: R [See Full Rating] for violent and disturbing content, language and brief drug use

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Apr 18, 2008 Limited

Box Office: $166,373

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

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Reviews for The Life Before Her Eyes

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1 - 20 (sorted by rotten rating)
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Full Review Source: Screen International | comment Comment
09/29/07
Screen International

[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 Source: MSNBC | comment Comment
05/01/08
Alonso Duralde
Alonso Duralde
MSNBC

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?”)

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
04/18/08
Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson
Boxoffice Magazine

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

Full Review Source: Little White Lies | comment Comment
08/07/09
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Little White Lies

Damn if the title The Life Before Her Eyes doesn’t give away director Vadel Perelman’s entire conceit!

Full Review Source: New York Press | comment Comment
04/16/08
Armond White
Armond White
New York Press

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

Full Review Source: Sin Magazine | comment Comment
09/16/08
Austin Kennedy
Austin Kennedy
Sin Magazine

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 Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
06/08/08
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

Too many of the scenes, however, are the standard fodder of which mediocre movies are made.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
04/24/08
Bill White
Bill White
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

If The Life Before Her Eyes has a message, it is that life is too short to squander on foolhardy meaninglessness. Take the film's advice. Stay away.

Full Review Source: BrandonFibbs.com | comment Comment
04/25/08
Brandon Fibbs
Brandon Fibbs
BrandonFibbs.com

The talented crew and ensemble did everything they could to raise an incredibly flawed screenplay above its Lifetime TV Movie roots but ultimately could only take it so far.

Full Review Source: The Deadbolt | comment Comment
04/25/08
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico
The Deadbolt

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 Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
04/30/08
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

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

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
03/28/09
Daniel Etherington
Daniel Etherington
Channel 4 Film

In between snorting and rolling your eyes, you can pass the time pitying Thurman, who has to emote in a vacuum, and admiring Wood.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
04/14/08
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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.

Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
03/27/09
David Edwards
David Edwards
Daily Mirror [UK]

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.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
04/17/08
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly

A melodramatic portrait of violence and mourning, Vadim Perelman's disappointing follow-up to House of Sand and Fog turns Laura Kasischke's novel into an overly precious, pseudo-poetic meditation in which the pain of loss is indulged rather than examined.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
04/11/08
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Matters of taste aside, the film's platitude-heavy dialogue and pseudo-philosophical themes are ridiculous.

Full Review Source: EricDSnider.com | comment Comment
04/24/08
Eric D. Snider
Eric D. Snider
EricDSnider.com

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.

Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment Comment
04/18/08
Frank Swietek
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

It wears you down, and maybe that's why the conclusion doesn't pack much of a punch.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Daily News | comment Comment
04/24/08
Gary Thompson
Gary Thompson
Philadelphia Daily News

The final twist ... only proves that the rest of the movie wasn't so confusing and irritating by accident -- it was designed that way.

Full Review Source: Metromix.com | comment Comment
04/17/08
Geoff Berkshire
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com
 
 
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September 22, 2008: BloggingSundance.com: An anti-abortion movement propaganda screed masquerading as a teen angst drama. There's apparently a new kind of female road movie out there, called the guilt trip. Opens in new window
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