“Life Itself”– Movie Review

Recently, I attended an advance screening of the new romantic drama, “Life Itself”, starring Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde.

Synopsis

When a young couple have a child, they embark on a wild series of events that spans continents, decades and generations.

Story

Will and Abby (Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde) meet in college.  After dating for about a year, they get married; eventually, Abby becomes pregnant with their first child.  All of this would be a storybook ending except for how it all turns out. As Abby nears giving birth, she tragically dies when accidentally hit by a bus.  This drives Will into a massive depression, causing him to be institutionalized. Upon dismissal, he learns that the baby survived the accident; he has a daughter named Dylan, who’s being raised by his father, Irwin (Mandy Patinkin).  Unable to cope with meeting his daughter, Will commits suicide.

Despite some obviously catastrophic circumstances, Irwin is able to raise Dylan to be a strong and independent young woman.  She does, however, carry with her the severe emotional scars she inherited from her family and this overwhelming darkness informs many of her subsequent lifestyle choices.  Dylan is hard-partying with a rough-and-tumble approach toward others, not suffering any fools; in addition, she has joined a punk rock band as its lead singer. Since Dylan was named after the folk singer Bob Dylan, she feels almost as though pursuing a music career is her birthright. 

In Spain, Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) is an employee on a farm owned by Mr. Saccione (Antonio Banderas).  In recognizing his good work, Saccione promotes Javier to foreman. With greater job security, Javier proposes to his girlfriend Isabel (Laia Costa); they move into a small house on Saccione’s land so Javier can be near the farm. A while later, they have a son, Rodrigo. Although Javier is happy both professionally and personally, he winds up abandoning his family when he realizes that the wealthy Saccione can better care for them.  When Rodrigo grows up (Àlex Monner), he attends college in New York City where he meets and dates Dylan. But when Rodrigo reveals a secret about his past that relates to Dylan’s background, will their relationship survive?

Review

“Life Itself” is the feel-bad movie of 2018 and we have the creator of the hit NBC television series “This Is Us” to thank for this.  It’s basically a two-hour soap opera that takes the audience on a journey around the world with many characters.  On its surface, this is of course not necessarily a bad thing. The problem comes when the story resorts to scenes with a shock value to either throw off the viewer or to simply emotionally manipulate the audience.  Apparently, the filmmaker feels the need to do this because he lacked the confidence to draw in the audience naturally so he resorts to cheap tricks.

The various characters are, for the most part, not very likeable.  As we move from one story line to another, these people come across as either selfish or narcissistic or self-pitying or some combination of those attributes.  Adding to this, “Life Itself” does not help its cause by being stunningly lugubrious, almost to the point of derision. Writer/director Dan Fogelman seems to have used the success from his television series as leverage to get the big names in this cast; it would be difficult to believe that after having read this screenplay a star would commit to the project otherwise. 

Even though “Life Itself” is only about two hours in length, it takes the long way around to get to its point, making it feel as though the film is considerably longer than its true length.  Its convoluted nature does not serve the motion picture well. The movie seems to be trying to say, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”, or something to that effect.  Perhaps a better way to convey this message is to listen to Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” from “The Life Of Brian”. It’ll save you time, money and aggravation.