Zoey Deutch in Before I Fall: It’s Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day

REVIEW: Zoey Deutch relives the same terrible day over and over again in edgy teen drama Before I Fall that is time-warped.

BEFORE I FALL

Three stars

Director: Ry Russo-Young

Starring: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi

Rating: M

Running time: 99 minutes

Verdict: Catch her while you can

MEAN Girls meets Groundhog Day in this otherworldly teen drama about a high school student who is forced to relive the day of her death over and over again.

Samantha Kingston (Zoey Deutch) is caught in a time warp after the vehicle she is travelling in crashes on the way home from a drunken house party.

What at first seems like a bad dream is eventually revealed as some kind of existential riddle — our protagonist must pass through all five stages of grief (as described by late psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross) to solve it.

Shock, disbelief and denial are experienced on a biological level as Kingston repeats her first 24 hours.

Halston Sage, Zoey Deutch, Medalion Rahimi and Cynthy Wuz in a scene from Before I Fall. Picture: Village Roadshow Films

Anger and depression combine forces further down the track. Since nothing she does seems to matter, Kingston reimagines herself as gothic provocateur, drawing attention to her friends’ flaws, humiliating an admirer.

Acceptance is perhaps the least satisfying of the character’s iterations — although it allows for a genuinely tender romantic exchange and leads to a natural narrative conclusion.

I have a soft spot for films aimed at young women — an often-maligned genre.

They exhibit a refreshing lack of cynicism when it comes to the subject of human potential (especially in an environment as brutal as adolescence.)

And whether literally (in “sick lit” adaptations such as The Fault In Our Stars) or more figuratively (in recent hit The Edge of Seventeen), they also tend to channel the life-and-death intensity of their target audience.

Before I Fall stands out for its slightly discordant tone, which director Ry Russo-Young conveys not so much in the dialogue as in the performances and the hyper-reality of the backdrop.

Deutch takes a selfie with Erica Tremblay as teens do. Picture: Village Roadshow Films

Kingston and her three friends (Halston Sage, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi) operate in a sexually-heightened world that is uncomfortably convincing. Their intimacy has been cultivated in the hothouse that is high school.

Each of the four girls is acting a part. Relieved to be part of the “in” crowd, they play their designated role with an enthusiasm that borders on desperation.

To put it another way, each of these mean girls has skin in the game.

Further upping the ante, Before I Fall takes place on Valentine’s Day — potentially the most alienating 24 hours in a teenage misfit’s life.

The four friends’ harassment of their lesbian classmate and socially-awkward fellow student is all the more shocking for its casual cruelty.

An interesting variation on the body swap comedy (Freaky Friday, Suddenly 30) in which the character is given the opportunity to re-examine their world from an alternative perspective.

Before I Fall is now screening

Originally published as Zoey Deutch in Before I Fall: It’s Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day