Before I Disappear (2014)

People are voting emotionally.

Instant Favorite.

As Good As It Gets

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I stumbled across it on Netflix, not expecting much, and was wildly surprised. It's beautiful and very well written and executed. A gorgeously poignant mood permeates the piece throughout, creating a near perfect setting. What could be a timeless story has just the right amount of contemporary sheen and grime and it delivers charm, heart, tears and pain all in enveloping beauty. Well directed, well shot and acted; just lovely really. If you can relate to equal amounts of hopelessness, depression and the blissful joy of life, you'll love this. What a gem by this new filmmaker. No gunfights, no car chases and no explosions, true. It was all done with an engaging story, cast and setting. Nicely sprinkled doses of subtle dark humor are also used just when they're needed. I love this film.

Firstly, I came to this movie without having seen "Curfew". Several commentators have pointed out that that is important in the way you see this movie so I'll get that out of the way to start with. I checked out the user score (7.2 at time of writing) and the Meta score (47/100 at time of writing). A bit of a mismatch I thought and maybe it was down to the film being "upped" by users. (We all know it happens right? Reviewers who come out of nowhere and submit one review giving a film 10 / 10 and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. All's fair in love and marketing). Anyway, as a result I decided to take a chance on it but with some reservations at the back of my mind and not really expecting anything that would really get me. What followed was rare, the realisation that the users had nailed it and the critics had really come down way too hard on this movie for all the wrong reasons. "Underwhelming, inconsistent, superfluous, bloated, meandering, posey, abrasive, over amped" to mention a few of the words used. I really don't know what film they were watching. Shawn Christensen, the writer, director and star of this film has already picked up an Oscar in 2013 for best Live Action Short but this film is dismissed as "not a bad freshman effort"? Ignore the critics and take a chance on this one. If you go in with an open mind and let yourself go with it's unusual flow you might really enjoy it. Finally, the cast were uniformly good. Fatima Ptacek, who I hadn't come across before, was brilliant, certainly one to watch, and Ron Perlman was Ron Perlman, nobody does that better than him.

It's quite refreshing to watch a movie that holds the viewer's interest with story, characters, chemistry, and real life issues without resorting to gunfights, gratuitous violence, sex, or heroes. There are no heroes in "Befoe I disappear, and why should there be, when the real world does not really have heroes, either? A group of people, all of whom with serious flaws and real-life issues, interacting with each other in situations that are not cookie-cutter'd or neat, can be a fascinating yet frightening thing to behold, as in this movie. Yet, there is just enough of humanity and hope in each of them to deserve rooting on by the viewer. Nobody in this movie is perfect, and nobody is beyond even a little hope, just like us in the world at large. Fatima Ptacek is a crack of sunlight shining through the dark, damp corners of the world in this movie, reminiscent of Natalie Portman in "Leon: The Professional," although "Before I disappear" is far more cliché-free.

Shawn Christensen's Oscar Winning Curfew was a wonderful piece of filmmaking, and I was worried that the feature version "Before I Disappear" would be just more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised and this expanded version took wonderful to extraordinary.One of Shawn's many accomplishments in this film was his deft transition of the Sophia character from precocious little girl to self-realized adolescent, who has it together a hell of a lot more than her uncle.It took me a little time to warm up to Emmy Rossum's character -- as in how could she have a child that old -- but a few lines to clear that up -- and boom, all taken care of. Emmy's vulnerability and willingness to go to a very raw place near the end of the film was beautiful to watch. Shawn's expanding the characters I loved in the short and adding new characters, played by Paul Wesley and Ron Perlman was terrific. Who knew that Wesley could bring such depth to a character that could have come off as horribly one-note?The cinematography was brilliant. The choice of color was truly inspired.This is definitely a virtuoso piece of indie filmmaking, and deserving of every award it has picked up on the film festival circuit. My only regret is that this film should be opening in a hell of a lot more theaters this awards season. If you love indie filmmaking, you need to see this film as soon as possible,