'The Life Before Her Eyes'

Rating:

BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

April 18, 2008

Whether playing a virginal nymphet in "Dangerous Liaisons" or a sword-wielding vigilante in "Kill Bill," Uma Thurman has always seemed, despite her unearthly beauty, human and woundable. As Diana, the haunted woman at the center of "The Life Before Her Eyes," Thurman has never looked more heartbreakingly fragile.

Blessed with a lovely family and a home in the autumnal suburb of Briar Hill, Diana is nevertheless plagued by memories of a massacre at her high school; she and her best friend (Eva Amurri) were forced by the shooter to choose which would survive. In flashbacks as vivid as the present, Evan Rachel Wood ("Thirteen") plays the young Diana, a long-limbed rebel just beginning to realize there's more to life than older boys and marijuana.

Based on Laura Kasischke's novel, the film delivers a shattering, if somewhat puzzling, finale. But director Vadim Perelman ("House of Sand and Fog") blends two powerful performances into a seamless whole, giving equal time to the dreamy sensuality of adolescence and the crushing weight of adulthood.

THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES (R). Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood star as a single character, before and after a Columbine-style tragedy. 1:30 (violence, drug use, sexuality). At Sunshine Cinema, AMC Loew's Lincoln Square, AMC Empire 25 and Cinema 1, 2 and 3, Manhattan.