Review: Before I Disappear

Richie (Shawn Christensen) wants to die. He's on his way to fulfilling his goal at the outset of Before I Disappear. Lying in the bathtub and waiting for the blood to flow out of his slashed wrists, he's interrupted from his imminent demise by a phone call from his estranged sister Maggie (Emmy Rossum), who bullies him into a favour: look after his 11-year-old niece Sophia (Fatima Ptacek) for a few hours.

It comes to pass that Maggie is in jail due to some fracas between her, her married lover and his wife. This is neither here nor there as it's a mere plot convenience for the aimless uncle and his precocious niece to bond over the course of a long night's journey into dawn.

The bonding itself is a device for Christensen, who also wrote and directed the film, which he expanded from his 2013 Oscar-winning short Curfew, to posit Richie as a sort of wastrel tour guide through Dante's version of New York City. The audience and Sophia are taken through seedy nightclubs where pretty girls die of heroin overdoses in bathroom stalls, and where every other person serves as further evidence that the world and the people in it are damaged and cruel. One could make a convincing case for the entire movie as one long hallucination or fever dream that Richie is experiencing as a result of his blood loss. Sequences like the masked party in Richie's hallway, his subtitled conversation with the Grim Reaper, and the spontaneous musical number with Sophia cartwheeling down a bowling alley lane all possess a surreal, dreamlike quality.

Cinematically speaking, Before I Disappear is skilled and assured. While the frame is beautifully crafted, the content is woefully weak. Not a single scene rings true and the majority of the characters, including Richie, operate at a level of hysteria that is overwrought and off-putting. Characters don't have to be likable, but they do have to be somewhat tolerable. There was too many an occasion during this tonally shaky, downright annoying film when I found myself wishing Richie would have just let the phone go unanswered.

Before I Disappear

Directed by: Shawn Christensen

Written by: Shawn Christensen

Starring: Shawn Christensen, Fatima Ptacek, Emmy Rossum, Ron Perlman, Paul Wesley, Richard Schiff