2020

Director: Amy Seimetz

Genre: drama mystery

So, everyone hates this movie.

Just read through the IMDb reviews. People call it boring, say that nothing happens, insult it as an artsy piece of trash, etc. Everyone just feels so angry toward this movie.

I want to explore this sensation, because I didn’t feel angry while watching this. To me, this movie was confused, unfocused, and nice to look at. I didn’t really like it, but I didn’t feel any of the vile hatred that others seem to feel.

She Dies Tomorrow is about a woman that develops a strong fear of impending death. When she talks to other people, she spreads this fear to them. As things progress, more people start to feel this intense fear that they will die tomorrow. Everyone reacts indifferently to this and treat it as obvious.

This movie was directed by Amy Seimetz. She’s typically an actress, appearing in many acclaimed indie movies. The inspiration for this movie seemed to be Amy’s personal experience with others reactions when she shared stories of her anxiety attacks.

The whole movie could be taken as metaphorical. This is not an actual disease the main character is spreading. This is just a visual representation of a feeling. Apathy and a lack of concern. Nobody cares that you feel like you’ll die tomorrow.

Maybe this is the point of the movie. Maybe not. It could just be someone trying to tell a weird story, or show us pretty images with unique lighting.

Okay, unlike the movie, let me tell you what I’m talking about. I’m trying to say that I didn’t hate this movie because I didn’t feel that the director was trying to trick me or was being pretentious.

I feel like if I talked to Amy Seimetz, she would tell me about this movie is vague ways that related to her personal experiences in the past. I think she just tried to explore her own feelings, and used this movie as a medium to do that. She isn’t trying to scam people out of their money, to express how she’s better than everyone, or to promote a certain opinion. Maybe I’m wrong, but I never got a feeling of malevolence while watching this.

But, as I said, everyone hates this movie.

This movie has many issues. There’s no solid main character to focus on. There’s a general lack of strong emotions on display, so its hard to get invested in what’s going on. There are too many characters and it seems like the movie just meanders around this vague feeling of anxiety. It’s slow, repetitive at times, and full of artsy imagery like deliberately placed paintings and photos of microbes. But, why does a movie like this spark such intense feelings of hatred?

Here are some possibilities:

One. The movie’s vagueness makes people upset for what it could be. Maybe the viewer has similar feelings of anxiety and wants them to be shown in a more clear way.

Two. The lack of a clear point or anything happening makes people feel like they wasted their time.

Three. They expected something different.

Four. The movie felt too artsy and open to interpretation. A lot of people don’t like stuff like that.

Five. The movie is just too slow.

Any of these are acceptable. But the hatred does confuse me. To me this was a poorly made film that tried to convey a specific feeling. That’s all.

I sometimes feel irrational hatred towards certain movies. Usually something that I feel is trying to tell me “its just a movie, relax and take a joke”. But that’s my personal opinion. This movie wasn’t like that, so maybe that’s why I didn’t hate it.

I don’t know. You’re not wrong for hating this movie. You’re also not wrong for liking it. I just thought this would be a good chance to explore why some people feel such strong emotions against certain movies. Maybe next time I’ll talk about a movie I hate.

As for now, She Dies Tomorrow is a flawed movie that caused many different feelings among viewers.

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