Movie Review
★★½
BEFORE I FALL
Directed by Ry Russo-Young. Written by Maria Maggenti, based on the novel by Lauren Oliver. Starring Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Elena Kampouris, Jennifer Beals. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 99 minutes. PG-13 (mature thematic content including drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and language, all involving teens).
“Groundhog Day’’ goes to high school in “Before I Fall,’’ a drama whose purgatorial conceit is all about preaching kindness and greater self-awareness to its teen target audience. While that’s commendable, the movie might ultimately be more effective if it weren’t so grating to start, and filled with such consternating emotional plot holes in the end.
“Why Him?’’ coed Zoey Deutch drops a few years to play high school senior Sam, a popular girl with popular friends, a popular guy, and one very popular desk for the student volunteers distributing those Valentine’s Day roses. (Did we mention she’s popular?) If there’s a twinge to her bright smile, it’s just nervousness about the evening’s plan to “go full womanhood,’’ in clique-speak. More on that to follow.
A party that Sam and her biffles hit is made awkward by the boozy misbehavior of her boyfriend (Kian Lawley) and the yearning looks she gets from dorky nice guy Kent (quietly engaging Logan Miller). But what really clinches the Worst. Night. Ever. is when mouthy ringleader Lindsay (Halston Sage) confronts frizzy-haired outsider Juliet (Elena Kampouris, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2’’) with a nastiness bordering on “Carrie’’ torment. Sure does make for one crummy drive home, especially when the mean girls’ tires screech . . . and Sam wakes up to find herself mysteriously reliving “Cupid Day’’ again. And again. Cue the Sisyphus metaphors in English class.
The movie devotes a lot of energy early on to capturing a day in the life of Sam, Lindsay, and their other “baes.’’ (Text-ese for “babes’’? Whatever, they’re played by Medalion Rahimi and Cynthy Wu.) It’s hard to imagine, though, that director Ry Russo-Young (“Nobody Walks’’) intends for this portrait to be so tiresome, shallow or not. And this gaggle definitely is annoying, from their lingo to their bra-flashing to their sisterly contraceptive-gifting.
It says something about Deutch’s appeal that she does manage to pull the story from the vexing hole it digs itself into. She takes us on an absorbing journey through the various stages of Sam’s time-stalled predicament, from freaked to reckless to contritely empathetic. Russo-Young gives the transition tonal polish, and Deutch gets able assists from Jennifer Beals as her mom and Liv Hewson as a sardonically standoffish gay classmate.
And then the hole opens right up again in the late going, as an undercooked twist obliviously swaps one source of guilt and grief for another. But ttyl about those, bae.
★★½ BEFORE I FALL
Directed by Ry Russo-Young. Written by Maria Maggenti, based on the novel by Lauren Oliver. Starring Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Elena Kampouris, Jennifer Beals. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 99 minutes. PG-13 (mature thematic content including drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and language, all involving teens).
Tom Russo can be reached at trusso2222@gmail.com.
