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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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61 - 80 (sorted by date)
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What began as tragedy ends as mere sleight -- and turns a trusting audience into dupes.

Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | comment Comment
04/18/08
Stephen Whitty
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment 2 Comments
04/18/08
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
04/18/08
Joe Neumaier
Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News

[Director] Perelman applies a rigorous visual beauty to this thin gimmick of a movie.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
04/18/08
Glenn Whipp
Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News

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.

Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | comment Comment
04/18/08
Peter Rainer
Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor

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'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

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.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
04/18/08
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

tasteful, overwrought direction at its finest.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
04/17/08
Paul Brenner
Paul Brenner
Filmcritic.com

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.

Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | comment Comment
04/17/08
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
BrianOrndorf.com

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.

Full Review Source: DustinPutman.com | comment Comment
04/17/08
Dustin Putman
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com

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.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
04/17/08
Tasha Robinson
Tasha Robinson
AV Club

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

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.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
04/17/08
Rafer Guzman
Rafer Guzman
Newsday

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

Technically, the movie is impressive.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
04/17/08
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Building up to what’s supposed to be a serious moral dilemma, the noisy final act borders on incoherence.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
04/17/08
Joshua Land
Joshua Land
Time Out New York

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

I liked director Vadim Perelman’s provocative first film, House of Sand and Fog, but this one is a mess.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
04/16/08
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One only wonders whether distributor Magnolia Pictures and Perelman's cast and crew grasp the film's undisguised misogyny.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
04/15/08
Maria Garcia
Maria Garcia
Film Journal International
 
 
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Latest News for The Life Before Her Eyes

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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