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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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41 - 60 (sorted by date)
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Thoroughly thought through and photographed with imagination and psychological penetration, it's the product of a very shrewd directorial hand.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
04/25/08
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon 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.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
04/25/08
J. R. Jones
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader

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

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
04/25/08
Janice Page
Janice Page
Boston Globe

Perelman eases the transitions between the past and the present with echoing phrases and situations, but they all seem rather pat and contrived.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
04/25/08
Marjorie Baumgarten
Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle

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.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
04/25/08
Rob Nelson
Rob Nelson
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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

Director Vadim Perelman fetishizes the threat of violence with his caressing camera.

Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm | comment Comment
04/25/08
Josh Larsen
Josh Larsen
LarsenOnFilm

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

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.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
04/25/08
Steven Rea
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer

[Perelman] makes like a poet on Provigil and starts dumping symbolism by the bucket, until you can't help but sit there, Beavis & Butt-Head-like, thinking, 'This means something.'

Full Review Source: Let's Not Listen | comment Comment
04/24/08
Tricia Olszewski
Tricia Olszewski
Let's Not Listen

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

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

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

It's too clever by half, too facile in its use of sensationalist headline material, too far-fetched in its psychological fancy.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
04/24/08
Sid Smith
Sid Smith
Chicago Tribune

Uma Thurman delivers a mesmerizing performance in The Life Before Her Eyes, a film that, once seen and fully digested, exerts the same haunting pull as the shattering events it chronicles.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
04/24/08
Ann Hornaday
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post

A fictional drama that uses a Columbine-like high school massacre as a plot device had better have solid justification for engaging our grief and horror.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
04/24/08
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

I think it’s a strong film.

Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | comment Comment
04/21/08
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An anti-abortion movement propaganda screed masquerading as a teen angst drama. All that's missing are the religious right pamphlet tables in the theater lobbies. There's apparently a new kind of female road movie out there, called the guilt trip.

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
04/19/08
Prairie Miller
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze

The Life Before Her Eyes will draw you in, then intrigue you, then bore you, then bewilder you, then make you crazy with its incessant flashbacks and flash forwards, and finally leave you feeling like the victim of a fraud.

Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | comment Comment
04/18/08
Joe Morgenstern
Joe Morgenstern
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's sad to see such subtle, wrenchingly emotional work expended on such trifling material.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
04/18/08
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide
 
 
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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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February 09, 2008: Trailer & Poster review Opens in new window
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