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It’s hard to get behind The Life Before Her Eyes because you never truly feel that the movie’s being honest with you. It begins with a bang: Two high school friends, Diana and Maureen (Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri) are discussing boys in the school bathroom when they hear shots ring out. The shooter makes his way into the bathroom, finding the friends anxious and scared. He gives them a choice, saying he will only shoot one of them. Then, The Life Before Her Eyes starts what is at first a conventional fast forward to scenes 15 years in the future, and which ultimately becomes a more convenient bending of the film’s chronology used solely to heighten drama and stave off the inevitable without supplying much dramatic weight or storytelling influence. The fast forwarding introduces us to an older Diana (Uma Thurman), who is no longer the rebellious teen she once was. She has a family of her own and even teaches art history at the same high school she attended lo those many years ago. Diana is also clearly haunted by the events on that fateful day, and as the 15th anniversary of the shooting draws near, she pleads with herself or some higher power to just get her through the week. The occasional flashback in films like The Life Before Her Eyes helps complete a picture of how someone wound up where they are. But director Vadim Perelman (The House of Sand and Fog) keeps jumping back and forth and it becomes evident that he’s only doing it to cloud something. What that is exactly we don’t know, but we start thinking past the movie on the screen, and our mind jumps to its own conclusions. Even if you don’t figure it out, you spend time trying and just by doing that, you’re no longer concentrating on what’s actually going on. Thurman is good in spots as the tormented Diana, but Evan Rachel Wood has played this same combustible character from Thirteen three or four times since then, and the bad girl routine has gotten stale and predictable. Even if she really is a bad girl – and dating Marilyn Manson kind of welcomes that assumption – it’s still boring, or at least, not exciting enough to keep your attention from wandering down its own path into guessing what’s coming next. She’s a capable actress, and I know she has more up her sleeve than what's Before Her Eyes.
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The Life Before Her Eyes Starring Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri Directed by Vadim Perelman Rated R Review by Colin Boyd May 2, 2008
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