“She Dies Tomorrow”: Are You Telling Me This Is the Ultimate Feminist, Existentialist Horror Film That Captures the CD-19 Zeitgeist?
Imagine a child picking up a copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales only to discover that the last several pages of each story have been torn out. Are Hansel and Gretel turned into mincemeat by the evil witch? Is Snow White rented out by her height-challenged pals to Sealy for their mattress ads? Does Rapunzel yell, “Fuck it all!” and get a pixie cut?
That’s how I felt about Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow, one of the more acclaimed films of the month. At a “pivotal” moment, Tomorrow’s oft-annoying heroine, Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), who you might well wish would kick the bucket today, looks out at a barren landscape, gazing this way and that, with smudged eyeliner. We follow her despondent glare as she continues looking but not seeing, and so on and so forth for close to two minutes. A very long two minutes. (One of her smudged eyes is also featured in the opening shot.)
Please note that there have been very few characters in my rather prolonged career as a film viewer, which started out with The Lady and the Tramp, who I couldn’t bear being alone with for 120 seconds. Amy handily joins this rather elite grouping.
But just so you will not be swayed by my unabated naysaying that will continue for the next few paragraphs, let me quote from Jeanette Catsoulis’s rave in The New York Times: “At once a fascinating experiment and a claustrophobic puzzle . . . [this film] could be about many things or nothing at all.” Hmmm. I think Jeanette has covered all the bases, and in doing so, she has found a catchphrase that can be applied to all future books, films, and Kanye West tweets.
The first 22 minutes will especially make you think She Dies Tomorrow is about nothing at all. Recovering alcoholic Amy is in her new L.A. house. She calls a friend, Jane (Jane Adams), and mumbles into the phone: “Can you come over?”
Jane: Are you speaking into the phone? I can barely hear you.
Neither can we.