Before I Go

Wonderfully mature and well-acted movie. I've always enjoyed Annabella Sciorra, and I think this is her best performance to date. The material is darkly comedic and quite moving. Definitely an emotional experience-funny in ways I haven't seen many other movies be, and uniquely touching too. Seek it out if you can, I really don't think you'll be disappointed.

My attention was caught at the very first screen when the quote from The Guest House was displayed, and I quickly settled in when she confronted the guy in the grocery store. This is a wonderful movie about life; how our perception of it affects how we respond in the world and the impact positive and negative words and actions have on those around us.

In the wrong hands, heavy handed hands, this plot could have been played as soap, as hackneyed, as a total bore. But the director, with help from a very fine cast, presented pieces of a life without going over the top or insulting the audience by hammering in the point. This was a fine movie marked by fine performances. Nothing blew up, and there were no bad guys.

Besides the fact that I lived for over two decades in the neighborhood in which this film takes place, there was so much I related to. The life stage in which the protagonist, Samantha, beautifully and realistically played by Annabella Sciorra found herself was so right on. I was a little annoyed when someone told her she was depressed and she denied it as I thought someone "like her" i.e., artist, New York sophisticated, etc., would know she was depressed, or would admit to it, anyway. But, OK, maybe she wasn't so savvy...? Or was just too depressed to engage?

But she did embody so much of what I know to be a depressed artist, hell, a depressed person, at a stage in life considering where do I go from here, if anywhere? Maybe I should just pack it in. But she did find reasons to live, related to all she thought she'd given up and though it was predictable, so what? Who doesn't want a happy ending, especially these days? The bottom line is the script works. Really well.

Oh, let me not forget to mention the moments of humor in Before I Go. Subtle, yes, but in my book that's the way humor should be, especially in a film about depressed or otherwise Morningside Heights characters.

This movie is really good. It ebbs and flows. I laughed so hard at one part my son came in to see what was wrong. Because I couldn't stop laughing. There is a lull toward the end that kinda dragged but once it gets there it all comes together in the end. Highly recommend. Annabella Scioro was FANTASTIC. She was so good the viewer can totally get where she is coming from. Well worth your time to watch.