Review: She Dies Tomorrow
We never know when the Grim Reaper is going to make his visit. We’re here one day, but tomorrow, we could be gone. Amy Seimetz’s newest film, She Dies Tomorrow, expands on this notion and goes a bit further.
We’re introduced to a transfixed Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) who is lamenting the fact that she believes she is to die the next day. Amy’s friend Jane (Jane Adams) comes to visit her after a precarious phone call and finds Amy in her backyard blowing nothing of substance with a lawn blower. Jane is worried that Amy’s relapse into drinking alcohol has triggered these thoughts of her death. Jane leaves to go back home, but is also succumbed by the dread that she too will be dying sometime in the next day. She visits her brother’s house where there is a party for her sister-in-law. Low and behold, the unknowing sense of death trickles its way onto Jane’s family and friends, too.
She Dies Tomorrow is a domino effect of existential dread in a non-linear timeline and there are so many elements that aid this dread. We are asked the question, how would you react if you knew that your life was ending upon sun up? Would you even like to know and how would you spend your final day? One might think it’d be a happy ending, but the movie argues otherwise, as we are presented with an overwhelming wave of fear and sadness. These deep emotions are reminiscent of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia.
On the other hand there is the anxiety and apprehension of the unknown. Prior to their realization that death is imminent, characters are seen mesmerized by alternating red and blue lights. We’re never given a true answer of what that is or means; it is up to our discretion. It could be potentially what one sees before crossing over, that final light, but who knows? With these unanswered lights and scenes cutting from past to present and day to night, your mind races all the while questioning your own mortality.
She Dies Tomorrow delivers in the cast realm as well. Kate Lyn Sheil is no stranger to working with Seimetz. She and Kentucker Audley previously worked with Seimetz on her debut film Sun Don’t Shine. In both films, Sheill takes the spotlight. She is enigmatic and uses her poker face facial features to the best of her abilities; she could be dubbed the queen of tears streaming and smudged mascara. The star-studded lineup also includes supporting roles and cameos by Chris Messina, Josh Lucas, Michelle Rodriguez, Adam Wingard, and more.
Mondo Boys’ version of “Lacrimosa” nefariously plays throughout the film and gives She Dies Tomorrow an unnerving opera-esque experience. While the characters are grappling this hellish potential of their demise, we’re here in 2020 grappling with the same possible outcomes if we come in contact with a virus. She Dies Tomorrow demonstrates how easily notions and thoughts can infect others and how quickly these ideas can spread even if they are true or not; an idea which is genuinely terrifying. Amy Seimetz is an experimental director to continue to keep an eye on, and She Dies Tomorrow shows only a little bit of what’s up her sleeves.
She Dies Tomorrow is playing at drive-in theaters now and hits VOD on August 7th!
