Evan Rachel Wood plays Diana as a teenager, before tragedy changed her life forever. (Courtesy photo)

By Bob Polunsky
Guest Columnist

“The Life Before Her Eyes” is filled with metaphors about death and frustration with life.
It’s a chick flick that betrays its source because its women are not sure of themselves. They stay frightened and aren’t always sure why.  It keeps the audience from getting emotionally involved since we are never sure when the women in the cast will give into their fears and give up on life.

Diana (Evan Rachel Wood) is a schoolgirl who tempts fate. She’s rebellious and restless.  Her friend, Maureen (Eva Amurri), is the opposite. She is overly optimistic as she looks for the good qualities in everyone. She’s sure they are there, but Diana forces her to question it.

Their biology teacher, Mr. McCloud (Jack Gilpin), winds up as a victim in a massacre at school.  The heartfelt trauma of that massacre follows Diana (played by Uma Thurman as an adult) for the rest of her life and endangers her marriage to a philosophy professor (Brett Cullen). 

Diana’s guilt complex is based on her memory of the massacre. She knew it was about to happen. The killer had told her about it, but she didn’t take him seriously so she didn’t try to stop him nor did she tell anyone about it beforehand. 

Her adult troubles multiply when she realizes her 8-year-old daughter (Gabrielle Brennan) is as mischievous as Diana was in her youth, and school officials warn her that the youngster is headed for more trouble than she can possibly handle.

The movie moves slowly to a climactic point when Diana is challenged by the killer again years later. This scene is hampered with clichés that make the ending too predictable to be as suspenseful as a movie about the unpredictability of life should be.

The teachers at the school remind the girls that no one can second-guess Fate, and indeed they didn’t when the massacre started. But they didn’t take the hints that Fate provided when they could have. As a result, explanatory hints dilute the outcome of the movie in spite of intense acting that consistently reminds us of impending doom.

“The Life Before Her Eyes” is a prophetic title for a movie about death of innocent people and the destruction of faith in mankind, but it’s heavy-handed.  Evan Rachel Wood tries to put more life into her character than was written into it, and Thurman picks up the cue and does the same when she portrays the same character as an adult.

The movie tries to be dramatic but overshoots its mark, so it’s melodramatic instead, focusing on details that become more memorable than facts so it hampers the characterizations and makes them look false.
The leading lady loses her humanity by feeling sorry for herself instead of for a victim that died, and her reactions steer the movie into a dead end filled with more atmosphere than substance. Then, too, it’s practically impossible to like characters that don’t like themselves, and, in this case, they dominate the film.

Studio rating: R for sexuality, violence and language
Bob says: “Too much build-up. Not enough payoff”
2 Stars