She Dies Tomorrow
Starring Kate Lyn Sheil, Jane Adams, Kentucker Audley, Katie Aselton, Chris Messina, Tunde Adebimpe
Written & Directed by Amy Seimtez
Rating: * ½
This one was a cult hit last year raking in more of the greenbucks than writer-director Amy Siemtez could count . After trying to stay attentive to the absolutely preposterous and garbage-worthy plot for 84 minutes(yes blessedly short, but still 80 minutes too long) I understood what a ‘sleeper hit’ meant.
It meant a hit that puts you to sleep. I gather this nightmare project was self-funded by the producer-director. I am not surprised. I can’t see anyone putting money into a film that has its anxious protagonist Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) saying, “I am going to die tomorrow” every few minutes. It is a contagious chant, more contagious than Covid. Because soon her best friend is also saying the same.
Best friend Jane(Jane Adams) goes around in her pyjamas zombie-like chanting , you guessed it, “I am going to die tomorrow,” or , better still, ‘We are all going to die tomorrow.” This line of thought doesn’t go down well with her sister-in-law whose birthday Jane gate-crashes mumbling… you know what.Jane’s brother looks like he would want to be anywhere but at this party crashed by his psycho-sister.We know the feeling, Bro.
By this point of time in this dreary drama of global self-destruction, I was wondering only one thing: what is the point that the narrative is trying to shovel down our (dry) throats? That we are all going to die sooner rather than later? We already know that.What else? That the fear of dying is as palpable as actual death. You can die simply thinking that you will die. Or you can die of boredom watching this anti-restorative junk masquerading as a serious discourse on the disease of mortality and the fear of dying.
The film seems to have been put together in bits and pieces. Tackiness is apparent everywhere.Some would saw the film has a raw uncut look to it. They are welcome to search for silver linings. The redemptive curve misses the mark by miles. All we see is a young woman obsessed with the thought of dying “infecting’ everyone with her mortal thoughts. Some of these “infectious outbursts” are unintentionally funny, like this doctor who is examining Jane suddenly goes into convulsions mumbling, yup, ‘I am going to die tomorrow.’
Tomorrow, alas, seems to be taking its own sweet time in arriving. By the time it gets there,the film has turned into a monotonous diatribe on paranoia . There is a flashback(any movement in time or space is welcome in this inert film) where we see Amy and her boyfriend sharing a pizza . This is where her whole fear of mortality started.
If staying off pizza will prevent filmmakers from attempting such a pretentious half baked paper-thin film on the fine art of dying of boredom, then I promise to stay away from pizza for the rest of my life. Provided we all don’t die tomorrow.