Movie Review: “Before I Fall”

 

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“Before I Fall”

By

The Closet Conservative Critic

Let me suggest that this movie is not for everybody, even while I tell you how much I enjoyed it. It’s more or less aimed at the youth market, and is somewhat of a more somber-reflective re-make of the 1992 box office hit, “Groundhog Day”.

“Before I Fall” takes the same premise of a character who repeats the same day, over and over. In the early going, it’s bizarre, then it becomes a nightmare, and eventually the protagonist comes to grips with the situation and makes the best of it. In both BEFORE I FALL, and GROUNDHOG DAY, the title character eventually realizes that he/she is given an opportunity to do something positive with their lives, and that primarily means becoming a better person.

“Before I Fall” presents us with a high school girl, played by Zoey Deutch. She is part of a pack of snotty, obnoxious girls who belittle others, and play out every stereotype of the mean girls “in crowd” in high school. Once Zoey realizes that she’s in an endless loop, where each day she sees her friends behavior becoming more and more unsettling, she eventually breaks with them and reaches out to the others that she and her group have tormented for years. It’s an alternate universe of “It’s A Wonderful Life”. In this the title character realizes that she not only does make a difference in other lives, but that she can make others lives better by being compassionate and good. There is a real nice message in this movie for teenagers who can see what GOOD they can do for the marginal people in their lives and schools. It reminds us in the older crowd that inevitably there was someone in high school we wronged 35 years ago, and “wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make that up.”

The movie has some humor, but mostly it’s drama played out against the old “Time Travel” scenario. What will eventually happen when are character comes BACK to real time? I shall not give that away, but I will suggest that the ending, FOR ME, was a bit of a letdown. Nice ride along the way…. A movie I thoroughly enjoyed, as well as its positive message, but the ending left me a little empty.

From the political spin side? Nothing here that will ruffle anyone’s feathers. Aside from the questionable choices the teens make with sexual promiscuity, and drinking, the movie is free of political posturing.