I have always imagined that if I had to ever live the same day over and over that it would be a bad day. Sure it would be fun to be able to do things without consequences, but it would get old pretty fast. Maybe I don’t want to do it because let’s face it I think most of us already do this, but in our case the date does change. Plus there’s no groundhog.
Samantha (Zoey Duetch) is one of those people who has the perfect life, the kind of life where the school that she goes to has the periodic table and inspirational quotes written on the bathroom wall. Samantha is surrounded by her friends Lindsay (Halston Sage), Elody(Medalion Rahimi), and Ally(Cynthy Wu), or the too cool for school kids that we all know. Samantha has got quite the day planned, not only is it Cupid day, but today is the day she plans on giving herself to her boyfriend. Everything works as planned, except the thing with the boyfriend, but on the way home the day ends with an accident. Samantha wakes up with the memory of the day before, and it is not long before she realizes that she is living the same day over again. For her every night she tries to change her fate and yet everyday she wakes up to the same day. She even gives up and accepts her fate, in which she plays the ‘bad” girl she never got to be. It is that moment when she tries to be someone she is not, that she realizes what she must to close the loop for good.
I know what you are thinking, everyone knows the classic “Groundhog Day”, is this a remake? What you have to imagine here with this movie is if “Groundhog” and “Mean Girls” had a baby, and it was a lot less funny. The tone set by writer Maria Maggenti is a pretty somber one, where insults like “At least I am not a virgin” and “no one invited you” are thrown about. Director Ry Russo-Young fills the world with things to enforce the stories mood. From the location (the Pacific Northwest), to the music, everything compliments the story being told. It would be easy to dislike a movie about emo teens that are way too privileged. A funny thing though happened on the way to that hate, it turns out I kinda liked it. Maybe it was how everything just seemed to fit together or the excellent soundtrack that I found myself bobbing my head to. I personality think is a combination of both of those things. I am not saying that “Before I Fall” is some sort of masterpiece, but what it is though, is a movie that can be enjoyed. It was suggested that when I saw this movie I bring my daughter, who happens to be the age of these characters. While watching it I kept trying to get some encoded message, but all I could get was don’t be mean. If that is the sole message of this movie, it’s something I could get behind.