Avis Metacritic

This neatly written Heathers-meets-Groundhog Day high-concept package delivers both technical polish and a toothsome yet likeable cast.

Russo-Young gives this teen parable the thriller treatment to ward off any cheese, and watching Deutch learn her lesson with that expressive face of hers is a singular, moving experience.

Deutch, who appeared in Beautiful Creatures as well as Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some, delivers a sympathetic lead performance, carrying the film with equal doses of sweetness and grace, strength and vulnerability.

While the story easily could have fallen into a broken-record rut, “Nobody Walks” director Russo-Young finds ways of making the day in question feel fresh each time Sam lives it, while giving the overall presentation a look, feel, and voice that’s distinct from the vast swatch of YA movies.

The film mostly retains its humanity, largely thanks to Deutch’s performance and Russo-Young’s insistence on keeping her at the forefront of almost every shot.

Before I Fall is a movie that will make its core audience of teenage girls melt and is a nice diversion for everyone else. It will make Hollywood studios take Russo-Young more seriously and be a calling card for Deutch, Sage and Miller. That’s not so bad, is it?

The beats are familiar, recalling many a teen movie past, but the themes resonate for today’s youth and they resonate clearly.

Russo-Young insists upon Before I Fall maintaining the courage of its convictions, and she gets her way — the movie takes a while to get off the ground, but when it lands, it lands hard.

It’s not a great movie, a deep film or a transcendent experience, the way “Groundhog Day” is. But Before I Fall is an admirable knockoff, a “teachable moments” movie about that first time we take stock, realize the what and who we should treasure, and let them know it.

All the film has to show for its efforts are tired platitudes about the value of altruism and living each day as it if were the last.