Life Itself Review: 2 Ups & 8 Downs

2. Wallowing In Trauma

At the end of the film, it's revealed that the narrator of the story has actually been Elena Dempsey-González, the future-daughter of Dylan and Rodrigo, the entire time reading from her hit book titled (you guessed it) Life Itself. As she finishes reading the story, she says that what she ultimately learned was life is about finding love and light not "wallowing in trauma".

That's a sweet message and all but here's the thing: this film is nothing more than an extensive exercise in wallowing in trauma. Much like the more recent seasons of This Is Us, Fogelman mistakes getting an emotional reaction (read: making people cry) for good filmmaking.

Viewers can probably count on one hand the number of minutes in which characters are actually happy in this film. And that's because anytime a couple is happy in this film, it is literally fast-forwarded past. Will and Abby's relationship is covered in the span of a montage but the film chronicles Will's depression over Abby's death in painstaking detail.

Similarly, Javier gets to be a good husband and father for all of a two-minute montage before he's suddenly written out as a bad guy (?) after Rodrigo is traumatized by seeing Abby get hit by a bus.

For Christ's sake, the entire reason for that final monologue about now wallowing in trauma is because of Dylan and Rodrgio's relationship, something the film entirely skips over. Meanwhile, audiences get to see the moment Abby gets hit by a bus not once, not twice, but four different times.