X
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 57 m
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 57 m
Summary Life Itself centers on a couple (Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde) that lead a multi generational love story spanning both decades and continents, from the streets of New York to the Spanish countryside, and are all connected by a single event.
Directed By: Dan Fogelman
Written By: Dan Fogelman
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 57 m
- 2018
- R
- Amazon Studios
- 1 h 57 m
Life Itself
21
5.5
Where to Watch
Summary Life Itself centers on a couple (Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde) that lead a multi generational love story spanning both decades and continents, from the streets of New York to the Spanish countryside, and are all connected by a single event.
Directed By: Dan Fogelman
Written By: Dan Fogelman
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
21
3% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
21% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
77% Negative
30 Reviews
30 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
21
3% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
21% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
77% Negative
30 Reviews
30 Reviews
Life Itself starts out with great promise – a dizzying first act that creates the tapestry of a character’s life by offering a kaleidoscope of moments from his past. It’s poignant, effective, and punctuated by actions that are breathtakingly sudden and unexpected. However, after the strong beginning, the movie takes a conventional turn.
Despite good moments and an ambition to reach for the profound, Life Itself settles for trite, sentimental and patience testing. A killer cast deserve better.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 49 User Ratings
5.5
47% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
12% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
41% Negative
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 49 User Ratings
5.5
47% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
12% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
41% Negative
20 Ratings
20 Ratings
This film is an absolute masterpiece. It consists of intricate story telling and connects it's intertwining stories into a beautiful and emotional journey. This film is not about the ending or the climax and doesn't conform to conventional story telling, but that should not take away from it's creative writing and tear jerking moments.
Report
I found this movie to be one of the best I have watched in a very long time. I was starting to worry if I was ever going to see something like in my lifetime. I am so tired of movies that you didn’t have to think about it as you watched it. This movie had everything. Comedy, drama, sorrow, and life lessons that it seems people need to learn more of these days. This movie makes you sit back and think. When I watch movies. I can usually predict what was going to happen next. With this movie, it was refreshing to not be able to do this. The way the characters in the storyline was tied together was what I like the most. I will be telling many people that if you want your mind stimulated, to see this movie.
Report
Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself packs in enough narrative twists and turns to leave viewers with a sense of emotional whiplash. One tragedy bleeds into another so often that the events begin to blur.
The rambling Life Itself is a multigenerational drama about the messiness of life, but the emotional impact of the movie gets lost in the messiness of its screenplay. And though there is not one subpar acting performance, the film itself comes off as an exercise in self-consciousness.
Life Itself thinks you’re stupid. Or, if not stupid, unable to understand how a movie should work. It’s a movie made for people who can’t be trusted to understand any storytelling unless it’s not just spoon-fed but ladled on, piled high, and explained via montage and voiceover.
You rarely get the sense of Fogelman’s characters being complex figures with internal lives – instead they’re merely there to smile weakly through whatever trauma their sadistic creator puts them through.
How do you rate a cinematic black hole that doesn’t deserve a single star? Do you simply give it five eyerolls? Better question: How does a movie, with all the talent in the world going for it, become a such a blithering botch job?
One of the best movies of 2018, for sure. I gave 10 for the acting, the stories and how the director could fixed all together to make all the connections. Great movie!
Report
In short, the film is watchable and even enjoyable in some respects due to good individual performances and good dialogue; however, I found it to difficult to remain engaged for several reasons.
First, the various stories seem unrelated with only minor interactions. The transitions are abrupt, ending one story and then moving onto the next. While the plot ties them all together in the end, waiting for it takes some effort.
Second, all of the stories are centered around tragedy and I just stopped caring at some point.
Third, with the amount of time spent on the "unreliable narrator" device in the beginning, I expected (or even hoped for) it to play a significant role in the movie, but it doesn't. Sure, there is a little twist in the end that ties it all together, but it is ineffective and unimportant.
Finally, the resolution at the end that ties everything together was a disappointment.
Report
Life Itself tries to be tricky by playing around with death and a theme the film reveals concerning unreliable narrators. I think the film gets better with time. The film seems to be saying without love, there is nothing, though if one persists in their life, they will find everlasting love; Life Itself makes love the ever connecting fabric between the dead and the living.
I always like to remember as a part of the audience I am agreeing to view the content as-is in comparison to its full potential (which helps fulfill my critiquing) and if I want to view different forms of content then I should create or seek them. The film as-is is decent though leaves me as an audience member with the assignment of listening to Bob Dylan's return project to potentially fully grasp the essence of the film (if Bob Dylan really contributes to it as much as the film makes it seem). Life Itself is not meant to be a serious film (you have to experience the narrating for yourself) though deals with serious situations.
The film shows that dialogue really affects actors and must be written well for effective scenes in film. Life Itself is showing life without expectations and relays life as uncontrollable in a great mysteriousness. I mean, yeah… death is our only guarantee (as far as I think anyone knows so far, that's all anyone knows of life that really isn't life, it's post life?).
Overall Grade: C+
- K.D.
If you're into Poetry and other bits of creativity, check out my Instagram: @Dufreshest.
Report
Life Itself is the sad kind of drama that pushes and shoves melodramatic and harsh situations in order to make you identify with them and care about their characters, because it's incapable of genuinely building its momentum.
Those reasons and their gross exaggeration make this film both meaningless and artificial.
Good cast, squandered again.
Report
With so much acting potential it’s incredibly unfortunate this films fails so badly. Not saying the acting is bad, it’s just so depressing, one bad thing after another. This isn’t life itself as we or I know it. In rare cases there is some sympathy for this but this is a poor attempt at trying to be incredible powerful film with great performances and as I’ve said it fails very badly.
Report
Production Company
17-28 Black,
FilmNation Entertainment,
Nostromo Pictures,
Temple Hill Entertainment
Release Date Sep 21, 2018
Duration 1 h 57 m
Rating R
Tagline From the creator of THIS IS US
Website
https://www.lifeitself.movie/
Awards
Golden Trailer Awards
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Heartland Film
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
St. Louis Film Critics Association, US
• 1 Nomination
