Next year, if you hear Warren Beatty reading "And the Oscar goes to ... Before I Fall," don't expect a correction two minutes later. Instead, you will continually reawaken only to live the nightmare every day with him.
Actually, that might make for a more entertaining movie than the one opening in theaters today. Director Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks) and screenwriter Maria Maggenti (The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love) tepidly go where legions of other filmmakers have gone before, and any treasure that can be found from recycling the myth of Sisyphus must have been plundered ages ago.
Before I Fall
69 Cast: Zoey Deutch, Liv Hewson, Jennifer Beals, Logan Miller, Halston Sage, Elena Kampouris, Alyssa Lynch, Diego Boneta
Director: Ry Russo-Young
Rating: PG-13, for mature thematic content involving drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and language — all involving teens.
Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes
For those who fell asleep during classes on mythology, he was the poor soul damned to eternally push a stone up a hill only to have it roll down before reaching the top. Russo-Young and Maggenti get to repeat a teacher's joke that Sisyphus is not an STD dozens of times, making viewers feel as if they are suffering with him.
It's not fair to fault the filmmakers merely for plundering the classics -- the Greeks and Groundhog Day. They also steal several tropes from Mean Girls.
Russo-Young assumes an oppressively morose tone through Before I Fall (Asleep) that seems out of place with the oddly minor stakes at play in the film. Zoey Deutch plays Samantha Kingston, who is initially stoked about the day she's starting because it's the Friday before Valentine's Day, and she's finally going to lose her virginity to her beloved Rob (Kian Lawley).
Most smitten teens would know that Rob is more ferry to Hell than dreamboat, but perhaps Sam and her pals Elody (Medalion Rahimi) and Ally (Cynthy Wu) don't notice because they're too busy tormenting less popular girls. Their buddy Lindsay (Halston Sage) is especially cruel to anyone she dislikes, and an unkempt loner named Juliet (Elena Kampouris) receives some of the harshest barbs.
After a party held by a sensitive lad (Logan Miller) who pines for Sam, Sam and her gal pals stagger into Lindsay's SUV and proceed to crash into an oncoming truck. Sam keeps waking up over and over again to relive the same Friday.
The more serious approach that Russo-Young has taken might have worked if Sam's situation felt like existential agony instead of, say, the emotional equivalent of finding a small rock in your shoe. The stakes involved don't seem terribly urgent, and none of the characters are engaging enough to make Sam's feuds and friendships with them seem interesting.
MovieStyle on 03/03/2017