38
Metascore
25 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliOf the two timelines, the one featuring the teenage Diana is more involving than the one featuring the adult version. Both lead actresses give fine performances, but Thurman has less material to work with.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenThe Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenBoasting two terrific performances by Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood as the adult and teenage versions of the same character.
- 40VarietyVarietyA femme-centric drama about the aftermath of a high school massacre, profoundly confusing "In Bloom" arrives at some very tenuous moral conclusions that might alienate much of its supposed target audience.
- 40Village VoiceVillage VoiceMoviegoers may mistake The Life Before Her Eyes for an unduly long L'Oreal commercial featuring softly lit film stars moving languidly with swinging hair through overbearingly premonitory weather.
- 38PremiereGlenn KennyPremiereGlenn KennyWhile "House of Sand and Fog" remained (somewhat precariously) balanced on the knife-edge that can turn tragedy into bathos, this picture doesn't fare nearly as well, and begins weighing down the viewer with its putative significance only minutes after its opening credits.
- 33Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumPerelman pays such cooing attention to surfaces that our response to violence carries no more importance than our response to the delicate jewelry around the adult Diana's neck.
- 33The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonThe A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonPerelman's follow-up, The Life Before Her Eyes, finds him clumsily trying to outdo M. Night Shyamalan.
- 25New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickAn overwrought and patently offensive anti- abortion drama from the director of the accomplished "House of Sand and Fog."
- 20New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinIn a vile-movie competition between Michael Haneke’s "Funny Games" and Vadim Perelman’s The Life Before Her Eyes, Haneke’s film would win--but only because he’s working so much harder to be noxious.
- 20Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternWall Street JournalJoe MorgensternConsider this more a consumer warning than a movie review: The Life Before Her Eyes will draw you in, then intrigue you, then bore you, then bewilder you, then make you crazy with its incessant flashbacks and flash forwards, and finally leave you feeling like the victim of a fraud.