Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Keira Brennan The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Chris Smith (RockPortReview) This film is a beautiful and lyrical meditation of what could have been. What if things would have happened differently? The Life before her Eyes is the second film from director Vadim Perelman, whose first film The House of Sand and Fog brought wide critical praise. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including best lead actor for Ben Kingsley.The Life Before her Eyes stars Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood playing the same character of Diana. As a teenager (Wood) she is a free spirited girl who is caught in an unthinkable situation. When a boy at school goes on a shooting rampage she and her best friend become trapped in the bathroom with him. The story then flashes forward and we see Diana all grown up with a husband and a young daughter. She is continually haunted by the events of that day and the kind of person she was back then. She tries to protect and nurture her daughter onto a better path but she looks to be failing. Her husband is a professor at a local college and could be having and affair.The plot swaps back a fourth between the young Diana and her best friend Maureen, played by Ava Amurri and the older Diana and her family. It chronicles the building of young girls' friendship and how they have arrived to the point when they are facing down the gunman. While Maureen is religious and chaste, Diana is quite liberal and currently seeing an older man. They are complete opposite personalities, but as friends they were made for each other.The movie is beautifully shot and wonderfully acted. As far as casting goes even though Evan and Uma have similar looking faces, their body types are quite different. The time lines of events for Diana are also a bit sketchy. There is a big twist ending that is a quite debatable and could turn some people against this movie. It could also explain some of the inconsistencies. It deals with some pretty heavy issues to the point of being overstuffed, but it is a good experience overall. The DVD contains many special features including a director's commentary.

aimless-46 Given the number of puzzled viewers I thought it might be helpful to just pull together some messages I have left in answer to various questions on the IMDb message board. I found it more interesting than any film I have watched over the past few years. But I like off-kilter philosophical stuff that merits repeat viewings and gives the brain cells some challenging exercise. And I like adaptations that improve upon their source novels. I like Evan Rachel Wood visually and as an actress. I like carefully crafted films where the director, the production designer, and the editor have obviously been in sync and have created a synergy between the elements; where almost every detail has a purpose and there is not a lot of throw away fluff padding the running length or trying to expand the target audience.I can offer a few comparisons for prospective viewers; overall it is probably closest to "Carnival of Souls" (1962) so if you are a fan of that film I can almost guarantee that you will connect with this one. In style, Director Vadim Perelman reminds me a great deal of Atom Egoyan; so if you hated "Exotica", "Where the Truth Lies", or "The Sweet Hereafter" you would be wise to give "The Life Before Her Eyes" a wide birth. The story itself is a blend of "Home Room" and Donnie Darko (2001); with the match cut editing of "The Hours" (2002) linking three separate timelines together. Philosophically it blends the existential themes of "Carnival of Souls" and "The Wages of Fear" (1953), but I've not yet seen anyone else make this comparison.STOP!!! If you haven't seen it yet stop here, watch the film, come back and read the rest, and then watch it again. Don't read any further unless you are prepared for spoilers.The only scene that takes place in the present is the scene in the rest room. The other stuff is either Diana's flashbacks to her growing friendship with Maureen, or Diana's imagined future flashing before her eyes as she tries to make a decision. The flashbacks show viewers the process of Diana becoming less selfish and more responsible; a maturing that greatly complicates her decision.I was not as blown away after seeing the film for the first time as I am now, although I bought into the friendship dynamic completely. I like it a little better each time I view it (including watching it with the commentary special feature turned on). Much of it is expressionism, which we don't see much in American films, so it takes a while to really connect with the stuff. And that requires you to let go of the plot and just go with the style and the theme, something easier to do "after" the first viewing. Everything is a literary device and getting caught in a plausibility trap will prevent you from making the connection needed to really go beneath the surface of the story.The really incredible thing to me is how uniquely it explores the implications of friendship/conscience. There are rewards to friendship but also obligations (responsibilities) and if you don't feel these, then you are mistaking friendship for something much shallower. Diana's life essentially becomes a Hobson's choice; between something and nothing. And the viewer gets to watch as Wood nonverbally conveys the process of her character slowly coming to that realization. The "life before her eyes" becomes nothing once she understands the implications of that option.The film is all about point of view, everything is being seen from Diana's POV except for the rest room scene which is from the audience point of view; where the actress Wood is communicating nonverbally with viewers in about the best acting sequence you are likely to ever witness. She is simultaneously flashing back to events in her friendship with Maureen and to parallel events in her imagined future.Essential to understanding this process (and the film) is to recognize that she and Maureen have already spent a lot of time together imagining each others' futures; and that these times are central to Diana's thoughts and decision-making process in the rest room.I think that the key sequence (which I only really picked up on during a later viewing) is when they are walking together on the sidewalk as the lawn sprinkler showers them with mist. The sequence is repeated later for emphasis. During this Maureen talks about how she used to watch flowers in a heavy rain. Telling Diana how the rain will crush the flowers, yet amazingly "some" of them are able to recover and bloom again as if nothing had happened. Diana flashes back to this and it is central to her decision. She believes that if she is killed instead of Maureen, that it will crush Maureen but that she will recover and bloom again. She contrasts this to the life she is imagining for herself if she allows Maureen to be killed, and the result is reflected in the crushed, decayed, and withered flowers that are symbolically shown in the later scenes of her imagined future.Also note the scenes where Diana is searching for Emma. What the director and production designer are trying to communicate in those scenes is that the real Diana has already been shot and her imaginary future is unraveling. Watch what happens to the necklace the adult Diana is wearing in the woods (falling in the water in the woods coincides with the young Diana falling into the water that is pooling on the rest room floor), her necklace has broken and the stones are hanging in the same pattern the bullets made on the young Diana's chest.There is a director's commentary on the DVD, in which he takes you through every clue and symbolic reference in his film.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

aceautosales After watching the film yesterday, I woke in the middle of the night to further ponder what exactly the story was about. I was up for 2 hours and finally figured it out. This is what make this movie exceptional. It makes you think for yourself. The images were beautiful as well as having dual meaning. I am so moved (and disturbed) by the film, I needed to share my thoughts. Rarely do you see a film that is so intelligently written, directed and portrayed as this one. Every charier in this movie was the star. Uma Thurman's finest portrayal, followed by her character in "Kill Bill", proving again how a talented director can bring out the finest in any actor. Unbelievably vivid imagery. The feel of this movie will linger with me a very long time.

phd_travel This is a terrible movie. Even if you are a fan of the talented Evan Rachel or Uma it's just so bad it's not worth it. The story is weak. Without the voyeuristic need to see the Columbine like shooting - there is really little to draw the viewers attention.What a badly written story. The flashbacks are way too often - every few minutes. Even though the ending twist is clear - it's a disappointing and annoying end - so you feel you wasted your time.The acting is quite good. Watched this cause I'm a fan of Evan Rachel & Uma. Evan looked really pretty and acted well. Eva Amurri is a little too unattractive in a distracting way she doesn't have the star quality of her mother. Uma was a bit haggard but acted well. Just feel terrible that such talented actresses were associated with this terrible endeavour.