“You guys remember Christmas Every Day? This kid is basically the Scrooge of his small town, hating everything about Christmas? He’s then forced to relive the same Christmas over and over until he figures out how to make it the perfect day, at which point he learns to cherish the holiday and time spent with his family? No? You mean you weren’t into made for tv holiday movies on The Family Channel in the mid-90s? Oh. What about Groundhog Day. You know that movie, yeah? Okay, good. Let’s go with that.
Now take Groundhog Day and combine it with Mean Girls. Strip out the comedy element and instead write it as a YA piece. That’s what you get with Before I Fall. Rising star Zoey Deutch is a high school girl forced to relive the same day over again, and it always ends with her and her friends dying in a car accident.
You can kinda guess where some of it is going. Much of the plot here is pretty formulaic. However, there were a couple of shocking moments hidden in there that I really appreciated. The more important aspect though is how it teaches a lot of the same lessons learned from Mean Girls. I’ll admit, I struggled for a while to get into this movie because I found it so hard to sympathize with the popular girls at school. We all know that wasn’t me. But the emotional journey this character went on was a powerful one, and as cheesy as some of it ended up, I was somewhat moved by her arc.
For me though, I’m a little too old for the target demo, and likewise wouldn’t particularly recommend it to anyone else in that category. For the teeny boppers among us though, it is rather appropriate, and I really hope that this movie can have an effect on today’s generation of mean girls.
Before I Fall – \m/ \m/ \m/”