Supposedly, Samantha’s journey is through the five stages of grief, toward acceptance of what could mean her own death. It takes her from A to italicized A in a slightly larger typeface. Her transformation doesn’t take her from A to Z. Remember how Bill Murray was a real asshole in the early going in Groundhog Day? Samantha is just kinda superficial and mean here and there.
But the problem is that Samantha isn’t actually that bad of a person. Obviously Samantha needs to become a better person and remember that she has a good heart beneath her callous bad behavior. You might have questions: How is this happening? What will stop it from happening? How will Samantha learn to be a better person? Did Lauren Oliver, the woman who wrote the novel that Before I Fall is based on, come up with the date in the film by casting about for other major, non-Valentine’s Day February holidays that aren’t Groundhog Day? Could I write a movie called President’s Day borrowing the same “one day repeated over and over” trope?Īnyway, what follows is pretty ridiculous. At evening’s end, as she and her mean-girl friends leave a party, they’re in a car accident that apparently kills her.īut instead of waking up in heaven or hell or purgatory or the reincarnated form of a garden snail, Samantha wakes up once again on the morning of February 12. In Before I Fall, mean-girl Samantha - Sammy to her friends - hopes to prove victorious during her school’s “Cupid Day,” which takes place on February 12 and is apparently a popularity contest that involves seeing which girl can receive the most roses. What if Groundhog Day starred a teenage mean girl? Zoey Deutch stars as Sammy, the not particularly mean mean girl.
And that makes Before I Fall a deeply dull, deeply confused movie. If only you were beautiful and rich, they assure real, pimply, allowance- or paycheck-straining teenagers (if they have an allowance or paycheck at all), you would have a more interesting, more exciting life.īut they never feel like real human beings, which makes the weird, paranormal adventures that Before I Fall sends them on harder to stomach. They’re meant to be aspirational figures, these #teenz. They’re constantly on their phones, but the way they use said phones rarely seems to track with how people actually use social media. They live in gigantic houses with spacious bedrooms, and their parents barely seem to exist. They’re blithe and arrogant, uncaring and affluent. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
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