God, Please Save These Troubled States

Uma Thurman shines in The Life Before Her Eyes, Vadim Perelman's newest drama. The film combines stunning visuals and a haunting story to provoke feelings of guilt and loss, though the ending ultimately may be detrimental to the film as a whole.



Perelman's previous film, House of Sand and Fog, may have been a weighty tearjerker, but it's one of my favorite films. In many ways, The Life Before Her Eyes is a continuation of that style of cinema. It's a slow-builder that focuses more on character developments than plot freak-outs, though both films' final moments blindside you with emotional sledgehammers.

Diana (Thurman) lives a near-perfect life in the same town she grew up in; however, her life begins to unravel as the 15 year anniversary of a school shooting she survived begins to approach. On that fateful day 15 years earlier, a disgruntled student forced Diana to choose between her death or the death of her best friend, Maureen (Eva Amurri).


What Perelman presents us with is a tale of unending guilt; for the past 15 years, Diana has increasingly felt that she didn't deserve to survive that day. The film frequently flashes back to the weeks before the shooting to portray a younger Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) as rambunctious, rebellious, and willing to experiment with sex and drugs, a direct contrast to the ordered life she's built in the future.

The Life Before Her Eyes is beautifully shot; visually arresting images seem to drift across the screen. The acting is wonderful and believable. Thurman is convincing and sympathetic. Gabrielle Brennan, who plays Diana's rebellious daughter Emma, provides realistic comic relief and character friction.


The final 10 minutes of the film, however, presents a problem. It makes sense within the framework of the movie. Perelman shouldn't be criticized for how the movie ends, especially since he didn't write it that way. It's based off the Laura Kasischke novel of the same name. Perelman captured the lyrical, dreamy prose Kasischke is so terrific at and transformed it to flowery visual imagery.

However, The Life Before Her Eyes is going to be compared to a handful of films with "similar" storylines and resolutions. (I won't name them; it'll spoil the ending.) It's unfortunate that so many people will probably write this movie off because it's already been "done" before. The truth is that Perelman's film stands on its own as a strong piece of cinema that tastefully analyzes survivor guilt.

Rating: B+