singedsun: lili in the movie legend in her dark dress, turning half in shadow (lili)
singedsun ([personal profile] singedsun) wrote2021-04-08 02:19 am
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She Dies Tomorrow (spoiler-free)

CW: anxiety, suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts

This movie feels very much like it was made for the ~aesthetic~. If you can follow what's happening, there's a story there about anxiety, intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation. The "main" character, Amy, seems obsessed with this idea that she's going to die tomorrow (hence the title). A friend of hers comes over, when it's obvious on the phone that something is off about Amy. Amy tells her what she's thinking and it doesn't feel like it's self-destructive thinking but more that it's definitive. Several times throughout the movie, people try to define how the thing "feels" how they feel this knowledge that they're about to die with such conviction and they all come a little short, but many of the descriptions sound like intrusive thoughts.

Amy as we see her in the beginning is a bit obsessed with the Mozart's "Lacrimosa", listening to it repetitively as she savors the sensations around her. She seems sad, but the scenes shift quickly and we only catch glimpses of her: feeling the wood on her table, searching for urns online, drinking wine as she picks out a fancy dress to wear.

When her friend arrives, Amy tells her what she's feeling, and tries to convey her certainty... but she seems so sure of herself and her friend leaves rather quickly. But what we see almost immediately as the scene shifts is that her friend, having gone home after seeing Amy, becomes overwhelmed with certainty of her own impending death.

From there the story continues as this sudden, worrying spiral of anxiety about the dread of an impending death hits everyone they come in contact with and explain how their feeling to. The waves come quicker from person to person and the scenes shift between characters as we see how each of them is dealing throughout the night. We also get flashbacks of Amy, happy with someone, before all this happened and we can infer her depression from there, the trigger for her dark spiraling thoughts.

The film is pretty, colors and lights used brilliantly to convey the sort of confusion that comes on every person with this anticipatory dread and certainty. I won't spoil it, but I would recommend it if the darker topics won't throw you off it. It's advertised as a horror movie, and maybe it is, but it's more psychological and emotional than anything else.

The story is not, as I said before, is not the most cohesive, but the watch can piece together what's happening and why. And it's a lovely watch, and there's several bigger actors in it as well, a few that were a surprise to me toward the end. It's a movie you really have to watch, not just have on in the background, if you're immersed in the feelings of the characters - which I do think they do very well - it will likely be an idea that really sticks with you for awhile.