Life Itself

Amazon Studios | Release Date: September 21, 2018

5.5	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 49 Ratings

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tropicAcesSep 21, 2018

Emotionally manipulative yet completely deprived of any actual feelings, this film has dialogue that no human has ever even conceived of saying, such as “I love you but I may not be equipped to be loved this much”. Barf.

3 of 6 users found this helpful33

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The3AcademySinsFeb 3, 2019

Life Itself is easily the worst movie of 2018. It is also one of the most offensive, insulting, and insipid movies I have ever had the misfortune of watching. Dan Fogleman's script is nothing short of emotionally manipulative drivel. I almostLife Itself is easily the worst movie of 2018. It is also one of the most offensive, insulting, and insipid movies I have ever had the misfortune of watching. Dan Fogleman's script is nothing short of emotionally manipulative drivel. I almost can't believe that he wrote and directed this hack-job.

The biggest problem with Life Itself is that it doesn't trust the audience to understand and make connections with the characters. It sets up contrived plot devices and tragedies with no originality and then has the balls to laud itself unironically as "unique and original." It has the unmitigated STONES to compare itself to Pulp Fiction. This movie is nothing like Pulp Fiction. If anything, Life Itself is a less-good rip-off of 500 Days of Summer and Manchester By The Sea, but it doesn't even understand how those two movies work.

The premise of Life Itself is that there are two families tied together by a single traumatic event. Characters are drowned in horrible tragedies, there is a Spanish sub-plot that feels tacked on, and the fact that the script tries to tie it all together at the end to make a profound statement is so degrading that the only real tragedy is that I wasted my time watching this movie at all. The movie's theme is "Life Itself is the ultimate unreliable narrator." The movie has no problem spoon-feeding you this theme and saying it out loud word-for-word multiple times during the movie. Talk about a stupid waste of a title-drop. I loved This Is Us, but now I am convinced that Dan Fogelman is a jack off.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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YeetusMcGeetusFeb 3, 2019

Yowza, was this movie rubbish. I feel sorry for Dan Fogelman. Was he drunk when he did this? I hated the narration. Totally took me out of the movie. It was like watching a ten car pileup.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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joanalperinSep 21, 2018

Stage and Cinema Film Review: LIFE ITSELF (directed by Dan Fogelman)
by JOAN ALPERIN on SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE ITSELF Writer/director Dan Fogelman is currently represented on TV with his creation This Is Us, which followsStage and Cinema Film Review: LIFE ITSELF (directed by Dan Fogelman)
by JOAN ALPERIN on SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

A CELEBRATION OF LIFE ITSELF
Writer/director Dan Fogelman is currently represented on TV with his creation This Is Us, which follows two parents and their three children, born on the same day as their father. Now entering its third season, the NBC show takes place in the present but also utilizes flashbacks so we see how events in the past shape who the characters are today.

In Life Itself – which opens in cinemas this week — Fogelman uses a similar technique, but now weaves together a story that concerns multiple couples over numerous generations and how they are all connected by one event.

It begins with Will (excellent Oscar Isaac) and Abby (Olivia Wilde), who are first shown at a college party, where Will says he’s “just waiting for the right moment” to ask her out. “Because when I ask you out, there’s not going to be any turning back for me.” At one point, he becomes the narrator of his story informing us that “he loves her like a stalker.”
We then find a disheveled Will at the office of his shrink (Annette Bening), where he relates that it’s strange to think about how a completely random moment would shape an entire life. Then it’s back to Abby and Will, now madly in love, married and pregnant.

Fate will link them to Dylan (Olivia Cooke) a troubled young woman trying to find her way in the world, and her grandfather Irwin (Mandy Patinkin). Then it’s off to Spain where we meet a rich plantation owner, Mr. Saccione (the wonderful Antonio Banderas), his plantation manager Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), and Javier’s wife Isabel (Laia Costa) and their son Rodrigo (Alex Monner). It’s their poignant story that will take one of them back to where the film began — the streets of New York City.

Spanning decades as well as continents, the film explores the human condition and all its complications: love, family, tragedy, joy, fate and — in the end — life itself. While some may see this tearjerker as manipulative, I absolutely loved every second of it, my favorite of the year so far.

Life Itself
Amazon Studios
U.S.A. | 117 minutes | rated R
in wide release September 21, 2018… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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bfoore90May 20, 2020

A great cast, including Olivia Cooke wasted in a well meaning but horribly misguided film dealing with themes such as life and death.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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andy24king24Jan 8, 2019

With so much acting potential it’s incredibly unfortunate this films fails so badly. Not saying the acting is bad, it’s just so depressing, one bad thing after another. This isn’t life itself as we or I know it. In rare cases there is someWith so much acting potential it’s incredibly unfortunate this films fails so badly. Not saying the acting is bad, it’s just so depressing, one bad thing after another. This isn’t life itself as we or I know it. In rare cases there is some sympathy for this but this is a poor attempt at trying to be incredible powerful film with great performances and as I’ve said it fails very badly.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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JLuis_001Jun 16, 2022

Life Itself is the sad kind of drama that pushes and shoves melodramatic and harsh situations in order to make you identify with them and care about their characters, because it's incapable of genuinely building its momentum.

Those reasonsLife Itself is the sad kind of drama that pushes and shoves melodramatic and harsh situations in order to make you identify with them and care about their characters, because it's incapable of genuinely building its momentum.

Those reasons and their gross exaggeration make this film both meaningless and artificial.

Good cast, squandered again.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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Mauro_LanariJul 22, 2019

(Mauro Lanari)
Puzzle film: a convoluted storytelling in contemporary cinema made up of mawkish characters who perform mawkish actions and events, namely a succession of individuals, stories and episodes as insignificant as a melodramatic(Mauro Lanari)
Puzzle film: a convoluted storytelling in contemporary cinema made up of mawkish characters who perform mawkish actions and events, namely a succession of individuals, stories and episodes as insignificant as a melodramatic soap opera, but intellectually manipulated to be emotionally manipulative. In short: Fogelman takes us back to the dark times of the scripts of Arriaga and Mendes.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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