Tag: Elena Kampouris

What’s up, my fellow movie lovers?! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!

We celebrated my niece’s birthday at the beach this weekend, so her and I were nursing extremely sunburnt skin and decided to stay in bed and watch a movie. She decided to use some of her birthday money to buy BEFORE I FALL, so that was her movie of choice!

Let me start out by saying that back when this movie was in the theater, I thought the trailer looked great. My niece (who just turned 13) saw it with her friend when it was first released and told me she didn’t like it. After watching it with me again this weekend, her opinion has changed. I think the message behind the movie went over her head a bit the first time, so I’m glad she gave it another chance.

With that being said, I actually liked it. It had a Premonition vibe to it, if any of you have seen that 2007 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon. BEFORE I FALL was more relatable to teenagers though.

The story follows four friends as they navigate their way through high school. As the four friends leave a party one night, they get into a car accident causing Sam (Zoey Deutch) to relive the same day repeatedly for the remainder of the movie. This concept might sound annoying, but Sam tries to figure out what could be done differently to alter the outcome of that one night. So while the day always starts out the same, Sam takes different steps to try and fix what was broken.

It’s interesting, to say the least. I’m sure many of us have a day where we wish we’d done things differently, or treated someone better, or didn’t trust someone that shouldn’t have been trusted. I know I have! This movie explores that idea and ties it in with teenage bullying, and the unnecessary need for teens to feel accepted and popular among their friends and peers.

I also enjoyed the casting for this movie! Zoey Deutch is fabulous as the main character, Sam. The supporting cast was diverse and equally great. These are your typical high school teenagers who think it’s funny to make jokes about the less popular oddballs. The difference here, however, is that viewers can sympathize with them a bit because of the little bit of backstory we get on them.

The message here is simple: Yes, we might have difficult moments in our lives that we want to ignore, push to the side, or even push off on someone else, but bullying is not the answer. It also makes you think about how you would live your own life if you knew you only had one day left to do it. The things we take for granted are often the things we should value the most. So I think this film really pushes that discussion of how actions can affect others and, subsequently, ourselves.

BEFORE I FALL is available on DVD/Blu-ray now. Check it out and let me know what you think!