With the Golden Globes coming up this Sunday, I’ve been watching so many movies and shows that my eyeballs bleed at night because I fall asleep watching them with my contacts in. I had to start writing down the movies I’m watching because I’m starting to forget. My mind just can’t retain all of this information after being clouded with so much (legal!) marijuana and alcohol. About two weeks ago, I stumbled upon the movie “Life Itself.”
I’d seen previews in the theaters for this movie. Olivia Wilde is in it, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Issac, and a lot of other random people you’ll recognize but can’t remember where from. The previews make it look like a sweet movie about life and happy endings and cool shit. I’ve been searching desperately for some positivity in my life, so I popped it on. Love me a good little uplifting rom com.
WRONG. SO WRONG. COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG.
I’m not going to spoil the movie because I think it’s important that you feel the same horrible, crushing pain I felt while watching this movie. I will tell you that you’re immediately shown (in a spectacular fashion) the kind of ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t live without each other kind of love most people wait their entire lives for, only to have it all ripped away in the cruelest twist of fate I’ve ever seen. It sets off a chain of events and there are a few plotlines moving simultaneously, but after the first 15 minutes I almost turned it off because my heart was so broken. I’m writing this a full two weeks after seeing the movie and I’m tearing up. It’s breathtakingly agonizing and beautiful to watch at the same time and I’m going to be pissed if people aren’t as affected by this movie as I am. It encapsulates the feelings of love, depression, emptiness, selfishness, selfLESSness, anger, resentment, longing, defeat and tranquility like nothing I’ve seen since The Notebook. (Shoutout to my girl @BarstoolFran who’s blog today reminded me I wanted to write this blog.)
The bottom line is it wasn’t nominated for any of the big awards this season so far. If you’re not nominated for a Globe, you probably won’t be nominated for the Oscar. Truthfully, I don’t think any one actor stood out in this movie enough to be nominated for anything, but the movie as a whole was the definition of extreme highs and extreme lows and MAN OH MAN did it pull a reaction out of me. About 16 fluid ounces of tears. Maybe I was just feeling especially sentimental, but damn. I don’t even know if I can watch it a second time (I’m a big 2x, 3x, 4x watcher) because I might die of dehydration.
Lock yourself in a room in the dark with a candle burning before you watch this. DO NOT watch it with your significant other, unless you’ve got the kind of love I described earlier, then in that case hold onto them as hard as you can for the entire 117 minutes.
Whine With Kelly 