“Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe there’s a tomorrow for you. Maybe there are a thousand mornings, three thousand, ten thousand. Maybe you have so much time to waste it. But for some of us there’s only today. The truth is that you can never be completely sure”.
This is how begins the movie “Before I fall”, an adaptation of the novel with the same title by Lauren Oliver. The film is aimed to the adolescent public; In fact, it won the FOX Teen Choice Awards, but the truth is that many of the issues that faces can affect everyone.
A movie that promotes reflection, if you know how to get away from cliches
We cannot judge “Before I fall” an excellent movie. It is certainly not a cult movie such as “Groundhog Day”, one of the best fantasy movies in which it is inspired. It does not try to turn his characters into good and bad, dealing with complex issues such as bullying, adolescent suicide and changes in self-image. Yet it is true that it doesn’t escape certain clichés and sometimes resorts to the easy tear.
The story is about Sam and her three best friends, the classic group of famous high school girls. During the first 15 minutes the quartet generates a strong rejection, but if you resist further, the movie has an unexpected turn. On the night of the “Cupid Day”, the girls have a car accident and something strange happens to the protagonist: she is forced to repeat the same day over and over again. From that moment begins a very interesting inner journey, which is not always fully expressed in the film, but can be intuited.
In fact, the most transcendental aspect of the film is that it leaves much room for reflection. Even if it does not deepen all the psychological levels, it leaves us glimpse of fears, insecurities and thoughts for which we can feel empathy, regardless of our age. We also appreciate a very interesting emotional journey in the protagonist in which we all passed when we lose something and we do not want to accept it, for the shock and the denial and anger, the anger with the world and, finally, the acceptance.
Phrases that contain great teachings for life
1. “Many things become beautiful when you really look at them”.
We often run too fast in life, immersed in our thoughts without realizing the beauty that surrounds us, not only physical beauty, but the beauty of the small gestures of those who love us, who often go unnoticed or unrecognized as they should.
2. “It is easy to be completely wrong about people: see a small part of them and confuse them with the whole, see the cause and think that it is the effect, or vice versa”.
Every day we let ourselves be transported by the first impressions, we apply stereotypes and we draw hasty conclusions. Sometimes it would just be necessary to take the time to get to know those people we criticize so quickly.
3. “If you cross a line and nothing happens, the line loses its meaning (…) Then you draw a line that is farther and farther away, and you cross it, that’s how people end up walking on the edge of the precipice (… ) It is very easy to get lost”.
The protagonist refers to living in a state of inertia, in which we stop seeing the warning signs, because they lose meaning for us. Without a doubt, it is one of the mechanisms underlying addiction, but we can all be victims in different spheres of life.
4. “How is it possible to change so much, without being able to change absolutely nothing?”
When we begin a process of personal growth, we often realize that we can change a lot, that everything has changed for us, but surprisingly, the world remains the same.
5. “I feel like there’s a real “me” and a reflection of me, and I have no way of saying who’s who”.
In adolescence, identity conflicts are common. At a certain point we forget it. But if we reflect from the social point of view, we might wonder if those masks we have begun to use in adolescence are appropriate to us, to the point where it is difficult to establish where the authentic ego begins and the social ego ends.
6. “It’s amazing how easy is to change things, how easy is to start on the same road you go every day and end up in a new place, just a misstep, a break, a detour…”.
Every decision, however small, leads us on a path rather than on another, is one of the fundamental teachings of Buddhist philosophy. This means that on many occasions, to improve things the small daily decisions would be enough, many of which are not taken because we are tied to our habits and we are afraid to leave the comfort zone.
7. “Hope keeps you alive”.
Viktor Frankl said that what kept alive the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps was the meaning of life, the hope that there would be life beyond hell, a reason to grab to support everything.
