Perhaps the only way to describe She Dies Tomorrow is psychological thriller meets an ode to anxiety and short-lived relationships. While granted the film was made before we’d ever heard of the horror-inducing virus COVID-19, the film could’ve been made as a commentary on life today and feels very of the now. The piece feels like It Follows meets a darker John Waters, in that filmmaker Amy Seimetz has created an original, disturbing world all her own punctuated with cuts so dry, sometimes you can’t help but laugh amidst the horror of the humans inhabiting this Dante’s inferno where they each wait to die. Ultimately, She Dies Tomorrow is an existential crisis incarnated and preserved in movie form so that we all may take a moment to muse on the idea of our very existence. So, how does a screenwriter create a world so wholly unique? By dissecting genre, and, perhaps, like some of the characters in the film, indulging in mushrooms before sitting down to write. Without further ado, here are a screenwriter’s five takeaways from She Dies Tomorrow.
Letting Go of Exposition.
Seimetz admittedly dislikes exposition, and She Dies Tomorrow is evidence of her disdain for spoon feeding an audience. The protagonist of the film, Amy, is dealing with the knowledge, or possibly contagious disease (Seimetz left it purposefully ambiguous), that tomorrow is the day of her death. Seimetz spoke to Thrillist about her lack of exposition, “It is supposed to be ambiguous, because the thing that I really wanted to get through with those scenes… [spoiler] …what I wanted to show is that whether or not these feelings and these ideas are actually going to happen, you know, who knows? They become real through actions, right?” While one might think explanation and answering the thematic questions of your film might satisfy the audience, Seimetz does it in such a way that the journey feels satisfying enough.
Embracing the Zeitgeist.
One cannot deny that She Dies Tomorrow has a contagion aspect to it. Protagonist Amy’s notion that she will die tomorrow begins to spread amongst her friends once she’s verbalized her perceived reality out loud. It’s hard not to draw parallels to the current contagion culture that permeates every aspect of life at the moment—although Seimetz was inspired to make the film when dealing with her own personal anxiety, and not the current Covid crisis. Seimetz gives us the anxiety-inducing notion right off the bat, when Amy’s boyfriend, Craig, rocks back and forth and chants, “There’s no tomorrow, I’m not crazy.” Obviously Seimetz could not have predicted these opening words to become quite so haunting in a pandemic reality, but by embracing her own journey with living with anxiety, she hit on a zeitgeist moment with some critics dubbing her film: 2020: The Movie.
Dropping the Idea of Linear Time.
Throughout She Dies Tomorrow, the audience is receiving information about the heartbreaking and short-lived relationship between Amy and her boyfriend Craig. Flashbacks to time with Craig often put the viewer in daylight, when most of the film occurs in a wine-soaked, glittery, strobe-heavy night. The time jumps, along with changes in POV that sometimes puts the audience literally in the eye-line of the character, give the film a notion of disintegrating norms. As the fear of death spreads, so does the need to hold onto anything normal.
Tonal Juxtaposition
One of She Dies Tomorrow’s greatest tricks is its tonal exposition. Right when you begin to feel for one of Seimetz’s characters and self-pity begins to overtake the character themselves, Seimetz thrusts the audience into the life of another character, not allowing for too much navel gazing. An excellent example is when Jane (played by the always watchable Jane Adams) crashes her brother’s wife’s birthday, played by the cutting Katie Aselton. All Jane wants to do is muse on her impending death, and all Aselton’s character wants to do is talk about how much dolphins love to have sex—“they’re just like us!” Seimetz all at once embraces the mundanity of life and the crisis Americans place on the inevitably of death.
Interrogation Over Resolution.
As one might guess, She Dies Tomorrow is not big on a final resolution. Amy’s fate is unresolved, and intentionally so. By setting aside traditional plot-building mechanisms, Seimetz leaves space and time for more contemplation and interrogation. As the “disease” of dying tomorrow spreads, each character gets a chance to realize their mortality is right around the corner. With this knowledge, each person then is faced with what will they do with these final moments? Should it be something monumental? Should it be a time for pleasure? A time for pain? A time for true confessions? Each character has their own answer, and while the answer may not be complete, it will, nonetheless, incite its audience to examine their own precious time being alive.
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She Dies Tomorrow throws a lot at its audience, but it also makes the refreshing assumption that the audience is smart enough to handle it. While studying genre, tropes, structure, character development and all the traditional “rules” of writing, sometimes examining a piece that’s just as effective when it seemingly follows no rules at all, is still wonderfully watchable. In a different time and place, it is possible that She Dies Tomorrow could’ve been dismissed as navel gazing and self-indulgent, but when time slows down in a contagion, self-examination is a beyond worthy exercise and this film is a very worthy watch.