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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Uma Thurman delivers a mesmerizing performance in The Life Before Her Eyes, a film that, once seen and fully digested, exerts the same haunting pull as the shattering events it chronicles. Read more
Stephen Holden, New York Times: As it plods along decorously, you have the sense of reading a poetic essay in which every image and metaphor is hammered too neatly in place. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: In between snorting and rolling your eyes, you can pass the time pitying Thurman, who has to emote in a vacuum, and admiring Wood. Read more
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Perelman never overcomes the disjuncture of having two familiar actresses play the same grown character, and despite the endless crosscutting, the two halves settle respectively into ghoulish foreboding and murky psychological drama. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: 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. Read more
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: What you get, in the end, is a pair of fine performances (from Thurman and Wood) and a technically well-made film that arrives at a foregone conclusion. Read more
Tasha Robinson, AV Club: The dread is thick and the atmosphere is so heavy that every simple car ride or bedtime story seems like it's happening on the crumbling edge of a lonely cliff. Read more
Janice Page, Boston Globe: The Life Before Her Eyes might offer a fresh perspective on aborted dreams, but its insights are buried under stale, inflated moviemaking. Read more
Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: What this film knows about grief, you could put in a haiku. (It'd read: "Death sucks, like really/Nothing else matters, ever/Therapy-what's that?") Read more
Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune: It's too clever by half, too facile in its use of sensationalist headline material, too far-fetched in its psychological fancy. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Director Vadim Perelman is big on slo-mo lyrical effects and confusing time shifts, making the movie unnecessarily arty and detracting from what could have been a searing psychological study. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: In the end, Life is a challenging success, with Wood's performance again affirming her status among the young generation of actors, and Perelman's vision promising more intrigue to come. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A fictional drama that uses a Columbine-like high school massacre as a plot device had better have solid justification for engaging our grief and horror. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Moviegoers 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. Read more
Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Director Vadim Perelman blends two powerful performances into a seamless whole, giving equal time to the dreamy sensuality of adolescence and the crushing weight of adulthood. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: What began as tragedy ends as mere sleight -- and turns a trusting audience into dupes. Read more
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: What this heavy-handed film mainly has to endure is a clunky story structure and an ending that wasn't original when it was seen four decades ago on The Twilight Zone. Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: An overwrought and patently offensive anti-abortion drama from the director of the accomplished House of Sand and Fog. Director Vadim Perelman doesn't play fair. Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: I liked director Vadim Perelman's provocative first film, House of Sand and Fog, but this one is a mess. Read more
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: There are two very fine performances here -- Wood's and Amurri's -- but they're not strong enough to rise above the metaphor-laden script. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Thoroughly thought through and photographed with imagination and psychological penetration, it's the product of a very shrewd directorial hand. Read more
Rob Nelson, Chicago Sun-Times: Not a film entirely devoid of virtue, though it comes closer to that mark than any movie I've seen this year--closer than any movie I'd care to see in any year. Read more
Joshua Land, Time Out: Building up to what's supposed to be a serious moral dilemma, the noisy final act borders on incoherence. Read more
Trevor Johnston, Time Out: Ambition and accomplishment are aeons apart in this would-be meaningful drama. Read more