The Life Before Her Eyes (2008)
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Director: Vadim Perelman
The best of friends, until the end.
If The House of Sand and Fog was any indication, it is then natural for director Vadim Perelman to make another extremely depressing movie. Based on the novel by Laura Kasischke, The Life Before Her Eyes follows the story of Diana during two separate times in her life: the first as a rebellious seventeen year old teenager and another as an adult fifteen years later. In her teenage years, we learn about her close relationship with her best friend Maureen and the horrible school shooting that they both endured. As for the later part of her life, we get to see a less confident Diana who is still struggling with the memories of the tragedy.
The mind mostly remembers the happiest and the saddest times in our lives.
Perelman uses flashbacks/flash-forwards constantly throughout the movie between the two timeline but the events in each do often follow a chronological progression. Outside of the intense and disturbing school shooting scenes, there is a dreamy, serene feel throughout the movie and things will not make much sense until the audience realizes what is really happening. When that eureka moment happens - sooner or later - the film transcends into a highly intelligent yet remarkably sad investigation into the power of the human experience that can forever change the way one lives in the moment.
Does it really matter when you know in your heart
that you have lived your life to the fullest?
Evan Rachel Wood, who plays the teenage Diana, is definitely the star of the show, eclipsing the equally wonderful Uma Thurman who plays her adult counterpart. Wood's final scenes are powerfully haunting, displaying the ultimate strength and fragility of the human spirit. Once again, Perelman has crafted a movie that will hurt you to the very core of your soul but at the end of the process, you will appreciate life even more than you have ever done so before.
RATING: 5 out of 5
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