It seems like with Color Out of Space and The Beach House, 2020 is the year of movies where characters slowly succumb to forces beyond their understanding and that they cannot overcome. They must decide how to spend their remaining hours and whether the curse spreads beyond them. Each comes to believe that this deadly declaration is true. Jane then believes she too will meet the same fate, and discusses this to her brother (Chris Messina) and his wife (Katie Aselton) and two of their dinner guests. Her sister Jane (Jane Adams) is worried about her mental state and then becomes obsessed with her warning. Her boyfriend killed himself after saying he was cursed to live one last day, and now she's convinced the same fate awaits her. We've dealt with curses in films before and we've dealt with foreboding omens of impending death, but how would you respond if you knew, with certainty, that you were going to die the next day? How would you respond if you knew that your existence was itself a vector for this mysterious contagion and that by telling others you are dooming them to the same deadly fate, as well as their loved ones, and so on? Sure sounds similar to a certain invisible enemy that relies upon communal consideration to be beaten back but maybe that's just me.Īmy (Kate Lyn Sheil) is a recovering alcoholic who knows, with complete certainty, that she will die the next day. The new indie thriller is an uncanny and unexpected reflection of our uncertain times and it makes She Dies Tomorrow even more resonant, even if writer/director Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color, 2019 Pet Sematary) doesn't fully seem to articulate her story. She Dies Tomorrow has unwittingly become a movie of the moment, tapping into the encroaching anxiety and paranoia of our COVID-19 times in a way where the horror of newspaper headlines and existential dread has been transformed into a memetic curse. An anxiety game that turns into a game called "what vaguely familiar face is going to get infected with an existential crisis next?"īonus points for the plague allegory though couldn't feel timelier and could totally get into the wrong (or right) person's head if watched under quarantine restrictions. With this only being Seimetz's second feature to direct and her first in eight years the instinct to "go for broke" is understandable, but the whole thing just feels like one big exercise in trying to figure out how to tell a friend or family member they're being stupid without letting them in on the fact you think they're stupid. If you're going to make me take a Tom DeLonge glance at what's going on though (dolphin fucking), at least have the confusion make for a lasting impression. The film then goes 0 to 60 with little care for narrative cohesion or drive, but sure as hell is going to let you know Mozart's "Requiem" composition is the shit! Amy Seimetz's She Dies Tomorrow is quite possibly the fartsiest artsy movie of the year that begins by executing itself through such prime examples of indie clichés that I wasn't sure how seriously I should take it.
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