Before I fall

Year of release : 2017

Run time : 1h39m

Genre : Mystery / Thriller / Teen Drama / Fantasy

Cast : Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Jennifer Beals, Nicholas Lea

The movie is based on the 2010 Lauren Oliver novel of the same name.

Samantha wakes up early in the morning on Cupid's Day (February 12), gets ready for school, and her friend, Lindsay, picks her up. On their way to school, she picks up their other two friends, Elody and Ally. The whole trip they speak of Sam's big night with her boyfriend, as she plans to lose her V card that night.

At school, their teacher teaches them about Sisyphus ( who cheated death, and was punished for all eternity in the afterlife, to push a big boulder up a hill only for it to fall back down at night), this is important (although in the movie it's not explained, we just see it written on the blackboard) to understand what is happening to our lead.

During the lecture, students enter to offer roses, Sam receiving roses from her boyfriend, and Kent, who's also in love with her. Kent invites her to a party at his place, and during lunch, they see Juliet, a girl Lindsay always picks on for no reason.

At the party, Sam's boyfriend gets drunk, Juliet makes an appearance and Lindsay humiliates her, having everyone throwing drinks at her.

On the car trip back home, they hit something, and Sam wakes up in her bed. The phone tells her it's February 12, and everything that happened the day before starts happening again. Including the accident.

When she wakes up the next morning, living the very same day again, she asks her friends to stay home, instead of going to the party.

Their friends are messaging them Juliet is dead, and Sam finds out Lindsay used to be best friends with Juliet.

Realizing she's in a time loop, and nothing she says or does, matters, Sam starts to be honest with her friends, which make them throw her out of the group, and spends the whole day with her family, with whom she hasn't been nice to (she doesn't let her mother enter her room, and is mean to her and her little sister).

She starts disliking her boyfriend, and appreciates Kent.

I personally enjoyed the movie, and the vibe it has, although the characters are unlikeable, as they are the popular mean girls, who pick on people for no reason (we find out why Lindsay is mean to Juliet, and is despicable) . I wished the authors (the novel writer and the screen writers) did something else with their characters (although the movie differs a lot from the book), but whatever.

Sam changes her behavior, but it might be too late for SPOILERS if she's dead, nothing she says or does matter to the people around her, everything she says or does now is in the afterlife, in the dream world, it only matters for her soul, her growth, it doesn't change how she affected the people around her, who seem to like her, and think her great, for some unknown reason, like her mother she's being mean to ( I guess she thinks her good because she's her mother), and Kent (who used to be her best friend,growing up) ,who's in love with her.

In the book it's only a week, but in the movie,if you look at the collage, she's trapped in the loop for months!

In school they learn about Sisyphus although it's not addressed, but I don't understand how did Sam cheat death. It seemed to me she actually was already dead. They probably all were, "living" in their own personal hell. Probably the time loop was for her to learn how to appreciate the people she wronged, and become a better person, in this case, ascend.

Although she knows she lives the same day, Sam keeps on choosing the same dress to wear.

I loved the place where they filmed, it looked so beautiful.

The actors were good.

The visual effects were good.

The soundtrack was good, some of the songs really matched the vibe of the movie, courtesy of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Empress Of, Gems and Ruelle.

The movie received mixed reviews and grossed 18.9 million dollars world wide, against a 5 million budget.

Cinema Score audiences gave the movie a B, on an A+ to F scale.

The movie is for free on Fawesome, Kanopy, Plex ; free with ads on PlutoTv, Shout! Factory Amazon Channel, The Roku Channel; 7 days free on Shout! Factory Amazon Channel; for rent / sale on Amazon, AppleTv, Fandango at Home.

Rating : Worth a watch !