A sort of emo teen variant on "Groundhog Day," "Before I Fall" has at its center a sweet-faced high-school girl named Sam (Zoey Deutch), who's kind of mean. Sam hangs with her friends, Lindsay (Halston Sage), Ally (Cynthy Wu) and Elody (Medalion Rahimi), who are also quite mean, and they giggle in the cafeteria and get drunk at parties and, in the early minutes of the film, die in a car crash. But no, we're not going to pack up our popcorn and go home just yet: The story rewinds, and the day starts over again. Sam has a chance to not be so mean, and to live her life the right way.
This was all much more fun when done by Bill Murray and a rogue rodent, and even Deutch's charming radiance (she never entirely sells Sam's nasty side) can't quite get us through the slog of this plot. (It's based on a popular YA novel, by Lauren Oliver.) Instead, you watch wondering where Sam's high school hides its plain students (seriously, everyone at this school, including the misfits and the history teacher, could sign shampoo contracts instantly); enjoying Sage's way with a razor-sharp pout; and cheering the true hero of the film, a nice boy (Logan Miller) who likes Sam and gets to utter the immortal line, "I once wore Crocs for 365 days straight, so I don't think anything's weird."
It's a well-meaning film, but you leave wishing for a "Groundhog Day"/"Mean Girls" double feature _ and find, very quickly, that you don't remember anything about Sam at all.
