Before I Fall (2017)

Directed by: Ry Russo-Young | 98 minutes | drama | Actors: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Kian Lawley, Elena Kampouris, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi, Erica Tremblay, Liv Hewson, Diego Boneta, Jennifer Beals, Nicholas Lea, Chelsea Kaur Gill, Roan Curtis, Claire Margaret Corlett, Kaila Kondo

You’re going to have to relive the same day over and over anyway… It happened to Bill Murray’s petulant TV weatherman in ‘Groundhog Day’ (1993). Being stuck in a time loop forced him to think about his life. So is 17-year-old Samantha ‘Sam’ Kingston (Zoey Deutch), the central character in the teen drama ‘Before I Fall’ (2017). Right at the beginning of the film, she tells us that it is her last day, which she relives over and over again. “For some of us there is only one today,” she says in the voiceover. “And what you do today matters – in the moment, and maybe even into eternity. But I didn’t know all that… Until just before I fell.” The story of ‘Before I Fall’ is based on Lauren Oliver’s highly successful young adult novel of the same name and the film was directed by Ry Russo-Young, a young independent director who received a special jury award in 2012 for her family drama ‘Nobody Walks’. at the Sundance Film Festival.

February 12 should be a special one for Sam, who is in his senior year of high school. Traditionally, the last Friday before Valentine’s Day is Cupid’s Day at school, the day the young people declare their love for each other with roses. Sam, who is one of the popular girls, has also decided for himself that this is the day it finally has to happen; that night she wants to sleep with her boyfriend Rob (Kian Lawley) for the first time. Her best friends—the bossy Lindsay (Halston Sage), the wise-cracking Ally (Cynthy Wu), and the riotous Elodie (Medalion Rahimi)—are just as excited as she is. It all has to happen during the party at Kent McFuller (Logan Miller) home. Kent was once good friends with Sam, back when they were still in elementary school. But Sam has barely looked after her old friend in recent years. The party doesn’t go as planned. Rob drinks himself completely and unexpectedly shows up ‘outcast’ Juliet (Elena Kampouris), a girl who is often bullied by Sam and her friends. An argument between Lindsay and Juliet spirals out of control and Sam and her friends decide to leave immediately. If only they hadn’t, because on the way home Lindsay crashes her car into an object – what it is later becomes clear – and it seems that all four girls died in the crash.

Or not…? Curiously, Sam wakes up in her own bed the next morning. She discovers it’s February 12 again and thinks it must have all been a bad dream. Until almost all the events of the previous day repeat themselves. And the next day it happens again. Sam tries everything to escape her fate; she decides not to go to the party, argues with her friends and her parents, talks with people she would otherwise avoid as much as possible. But it all doesn’t help; each time she wakes up on February 12th. Until she realizes to what extent she can change the lives of others in a crucial way with just a single word or gesture.

In ‘Before I Fall’ familiar themes from teenage films are condensed into a melodramatic whole with a supernatural twist. Because bullying, insecure teenagers, making the right choices; they are factors that have grown into the genre of the teenage film. The time loop in which Sam gets entangled – why she of all people and not Lindsay, for example – is not clear and raises question marks. It’s mostly a gimmick. But fortunately an interesting gimmick, because how does the central character deal with that endless torment? Ry Russo-Young throws quite a bit of symbolism (the butterflies in Sam’s room that refer to the ‘Butterfly Effect’, the teacher who talks about the mythological figure Sisyphus), so that we don’t miss what is hanging over Sam. The moral of the story is also pretty thick on top, but that doesn’t bother me. We also take the predictability of ‘Before I Fall’ for granted, especially thanks to the convincing playing of the still young cast. Deutch, Sage and Miller in particular know how to distinguish themselves, although the characters remain somewhat superficial. Attempts, for example, to give Lindsay some backstory, and thus explain why she does the way she does, fail to have good intentions. Nevertheless, the actors manage to keep our attention. And certainly Deutch, a charming and sympathetic appearance, we finally close in our hearts.

‘Before I Fall’ combines all kinds of elements from ‘time loop films’ and teen drama into a film that is not as innovative and contemporary as hoped. The phenomenon of reliving the same day over and over again remains fascinating, but is no longer so original (search the list of ‘films featuring time loops’ on Google). Despite its flaws, however, ‘Before I Fall’ is quite entertaining, which is partly due to the talented young cast. Because we will probably hear and see a lot more from actresses Zoey Deutch and Halston Sage.