Before I Fall

Before I Fall

Starring Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Jennifer Beals

Directed by Ry Russo-Young

The Story:
Samantha Kingston (Zoey Deutch) is your typical teenage girl.  She gets annoyed with her younger sister, pretty much ignores her parents, and hangs out with the mean girl crowd including uber-queen Lindsay (Halston Sage).  She's dating the most popular guy at school, about to loose her virginity, and draws the attention of fellow student Kent (Logan Miller).  She is mean to outcast Juliet (Elena Kampouris) and attends the biggest party of the year.  Then she and her friends are involved in some sort of car accident, and Samantha wakes up again the same day.

At first, she thinks she had a bad dream, but when the events of the day continue the same as before, she begins to fear something else is happening.  As she's forced to relive the same day over and over, she has to find a way to get past it and hopefully see tomorrow.

The Synopsis:
"Groundhog Day" set the precedent of this type of movie.  A man relives the same day again and again until he leans an important lesson about himself.  There it's pure comedy, and there's also a reason why it's still heralded as one of the best in the business.

This idea also takes a turn for terror in "Happy Death Day," where a sorority girl relives the same day over and over, but it's the day she dies, and she has to find the killer before her extra lives expire.  While this too has some truly comedic moments, it's more thriller than laughter.

With "Before I Fall," the same concept is the main thrust of the film, but there's hardly a smile to crack.  Instead, this is a purely dramatic film that centers on the life of one girl who relives one day over and over, with the intended consequence of learning some sort of lesson.

The main mystery here is what that lesson is.  While this film deviates slightly from others like it (such as the fact that all four girls are involved in the accident, yet only Sam seems to be the one obvious of that fact), it still follows the same formula that's been done before and to much better effect.  While I'm obviously not the target audience (it's based off a YA novel by Lauren Oliver), it still seems to paint today's youth in such broad strokes that it's difficult to actually feel for anyone, despite the film's attempts to do so.

At the start of the film, we're led to believe Sam is this mean, heartless individual who only cares for herself and her friends.  She yells at her younger sister, prevents her mother from entering her room, and makes fun of a girl who looks different than her.  Yet the casting doesn't seem to work here, as Zoey Deutch has this youthful innocence about her that makes her actions not match her natural demeanor.  She has the look of a nice girl, so seeing her being mean looks out of place to say the least.  This isn't against Deutch's performance (she's a great up-and-coming talent who will surely prosper in future films), but against the character type she was cast as.

Her friends play the typical "Mean Girls" style tropes.  Her best friend Lindsey is the head mean girl, who's so superficial and calloused that she obviously doesn't care about anyone but herself.  Her other two friends are equally feckless, their only discerning traits is that one is smart and the other is a wild child.  Her boyfriend is the generic jock-stock character who's egotistical and self-serving.  Thus is the life of teenagers I suppose, but here they're so over-the-top it's ridiculous.

On the other end of the spectrum is the outcasts.  Juliet dresses in clothes from the 1800s, has unruly, untamed hair, and paints with black charcoal in angry strokes.  Kent is Sam's former BFF during childhood who harbors a deep crush on her that's borderline stalker-ish, but he's so nice and naive it's alright.  Then there's the typical lesbian character who wears boots, has a short boy cut, and talks about how Cupid Day (the school's version of Valentine's Day) is nothing more than "heteronormative hell."

Through these cliches is the most glaring one: Sam has to change her attitude toward life and everyone else.  As the day replays itself, she begins acting nicer to her family, calling out her friends on their blatant snobbery, and begins to befriend those who are unloved.  She's your Mother Teresa, only a lot younger.  Yet, she keeps living the same day again and again, and wonders what else she's missing.  When she finally discovers the entire truth, it leads her on a path of ultimate sacrifice and showing what it really means to love.

Or something like that.  It's really predictable and boring, a film that was hard to keep my attention due to the glaring kindergarten-style writing.  Not to mention the pacing, which was all over the place (there's scenes where the music is blaring and exciting, and all we see is Sam walking down a hallway), and obvious goofs on the cutting room floor (one second Sam and Kent's heads are touching and the next she's a few feet away, the camera lingers on Lindsey in one scene for a while too long as she doesn't say anything and it comes across as strange).  It's sad that I remember the errors more than the actual story, but that's what happens when you produce such a generic movie.

Actually, I lied.  I did remember that I often mistook Zoey Deutch for Ellen Page, Halston Sage for Hillary Swank, and Logan Miller for Evan Peters.  I would wonder why they would star in a film like this, before remembering it's not really them, but their lesser doppelgangers. 

The Summary:
Sam asks the question, "when you die, what will you want to be remembered for?"  Unfortunately, "Before I Fall" will be remembered as a mediocre drama filled with stale cliches and a predictable outcome.

The Score: C+