ViewGuide

Created Mar 29, 2009 06:30AM PST • Edited Mar 29, 2009 06:30AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Vadim Perelman’s “Life Before Her Eyes” might or might not be the best school shooting film since Gus Van Sant’s elegiac “Elephant,” but either way that doesn’t necessarily mean its up too much. Laying lyricism and symbolism on thick, this Uma Thurman-starrer sees the anti-hero of the “Kill Bill” films waxing philosophical on her survival, years earlier (when her character is played by Evan Rachel Wood), of a school shooting that saw her best friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) shot dead when the perpetrator of the crimes gave the pair a choice between which one of them he would kill before turning the gun on himself. Now happily married and with a daughter, she can’t help but feel guilty about her tragic involvement in her friend’s death, not to mention the increasingly strained relationship they shared together in the days and weeks leading up to the bloody massacre.

   Mixing flashbacks to the high school days of Thurman’s Diana and her present-day life leading up to the anniversary of the event, Perelman’s visually ambitious film (a shot of a gymnasium is particularly audacious, triumphant, if greatly unsettling) begins to make one dread where everything’s going to go. Tragically, Perelman succeeds not at matching the lush cinematography and committed performances with a concise and poignant capper but instead chooses to go the route many viewers will have long been dreading throughout: that of a twist. It is everything you’d expect it to be, and keeps “The Life Before Her Eyes” miles away from reaching the profundity of the aforementioned “Elephant,” even if the film’s individual fluorishes can’t allow you to completely hate the direction it ultimately steers itself in. A minor success or slight failure, it could be either one.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Uma Thurman has several quite moments throughout, getting to flex her dramatic muscle in a way many of her films don’t allow her, but is outshined by her younger counterpart Evan Rachel Wood, excellent as the younger Diana. Her immediate guilt is palpable whereas Thurman’s comes off as simply serviceable. Otherwise, Eva Amurri does fine work as Maureen.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Visually lush but artistically questionable, it strives to make some kind of statement about the seemingly ongoing school shooting epidemic but doesn’t have the muscle — or simply appears too confused — to back it up. More than anything else, Perelman shows an ability to lay pretty much everything on thick, which shall probably be another deciding factor of whether you’ll simply like the film or totally despise it. Deserving the biggest compliment is the initial bathroom scene between the two girls and the gunman, easily the film’s most unbearably tense and well-acted.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.8

17. Sex Innocent 1.4

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.4

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Glib 1.4