Life Itself (2018 film)

Life Itself is a 2018 American drama film written, co-produced and directed by Dan Fogelman. It stars Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa, Annette Bening, and Antonio Banderas, and follows multiple couples over numerous generations, and their connections to a single event.
The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 21, 2018, by Amazon Studios. "Life Itself" received largely negative reviews from critics, who called it "simultaneously overwrought and underwhelming."
Plot.
Narrator Samuel L. Jackson first introduces the hero of the story, Henry, as he is talking to his therapist, Dr. Cait Morris (Annette Bening). Unimpressed with Henry, he focuses on Cait. As she is crossing the street, Will Dempsey (Oscar Isaac) tells her he is a big fan and she is then hit by a bus. Sam breaks the narration, appears physically, and suggests that Cait will be fine because she is the hero. When he sees that she is dead, he leaves.
It is then revealed that this scene is part of a script that Will is writing, and another narrator (Lorenza Izzo) takes over, going on to tell the actual story. Cait is actually Will's therapist, and he has been seeing her since he was discharged from a psychiatric hospital. Flashbacks show Will and his wife Abby's (Olivia Wilde) married life. She is a Dylan fan, and is very pregnant.
Will tells Cait about Abby's history. Her parents died in a car accident, while she sat in the backseat. She was forced to live with her only family member: her Uncle Joe (Bryant Carroll), who physically and sexually abused her until her teens, when she borrowed a gun from a friend and threatened to kill him if he touched her again. 
Abby and Will meet, become friends in college, he asks her out and less than a year later, proposes. She meets Will's parents Irwin (Mandy Patinkin) and Linda (Jean Smart). On another occasion, Abby excitedly talks to Will about her thesis on the unreliable narrator: that life is the ultimate unreliable narrator as it is so tricky and surprising.
In the present day, Will wonders what went wrong. Cait tells Will that he was institutionalized following Abby leaving, pushing him to remember what happened "that day". Will and Abby were walking down the street after having lunch with his parents, when Abby announced that she was having a girl and wanted to name her Dylan. Distracted, Abby is struck by a bus, while a little boy watches from inside. She dies and the baby survives. Will, blaming himself for his wife's death, shoots himself in front of Cait.
Will and Abby's daughter Dylan, born of death and tragedy, seems to have a dark cloud following her throughout her childhood. Raised by her grandparents, Linda passes away when Dylan is 6. Her dog dies when she is 7, leading to a talk with Irwin about death. On her 21st birthday, Dylan (Olivia Cooke) gets ready to go out, and then performs a rendition of To Make You Feel My Love with her band.
After the show, Dylan fights another girl before leaving the venue. She sits down on a bench to smoke a joint and imagines watching her mother's final moment. Waking up crying with the bus in front of her, she seemingly sees the young boy on the bus asking her if she is okay.
In Spain, Vincent Saccione (Antonio Banderas) owns an olive plantation. He invites his worker, Javier Gonzalez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), into his house for a drink, telling him the story of how his Italian father impregnated his Spanish mother and then shunned them both. Saccione inherited all of his wealth and his land as his father left no will. He offers Javier the position of foreman, and the opportunity to live in the house rent-free.
Javier visits his beloved girlfriend Isabel Diaz (Laia Costa), telling her about his promotion. They build a life together, getting married and becoming parents to Rodrigo. Saccione often visits Rodrigo and Isabel while Javier is out working. After Saccione gifts him a globe, Rodrigo becomes interested in seeing New York. Saccione tells Isabel he feels it is too late for him to find the happiness that Javier has, and apologizes for intruding. Isabel assures Saccione that Rodrigo enjoys his visits. However, Javier disapproves of Saccione's unannounced visits and returns the globe.
Javier takes Isabel and Rodrigo on a vacation to see New York City. Rodrigo is having the time of his life, until they find themselves on the bus. Rodrigo distracts the bus driver, causing him to hit Abby, and he becomes traumatized.
Back home, Javier and Isabel struggle to take care of sleepless Rodrigo, straining the marriage. They invite Saccione to help Rodrigo, making Javier jealous. Feeling that his wife and son love Saccione more than him, he confronts Saccione, asking if he loves them both, and he guiltily says yes. Javier leaves, although Isabel insists she loves her life with him. She stays with Saccione, but makes it clear she will not love him like she loves Javier.
Rodrigo (Alex Monner) grows up going to school in New York. He starts a relationship with a girl named Shari, a trust fund baby from a rich Long Island family. He returns home when Isabel contracts cancer. Rodrigo wants to stay with her, but she tells him "Enough is enough", and they say goodbye.
The most important day in Rodrigo's life starts with Shari telling him she is pregnant. When later she says it was just an April Fool's prank, Rodrigo breaks up with her, fed up with her shallowness and immaturity. In Spain, Isabel has little time left and Javier arrives for the first time in years. Apparently Javier had asked Saccione to keep him updated on Isabel and Rodrigo, so he spends one final moment with his wife. Rodrigo gets the news that Isabel died. Distraught, Rodrigo goes for a run through the city, and comes across Dylan crying on the bench, asking her if she is okay.
The narrator is Elena (Lorenza Izzo), Dylan and Rodrigo's daughter. Reading from her book, entitled "Life Itself", the story of everything that led to her parents' meeting, she repeats the last thing that Isabel told Rodrigo: even if life brings us to our knees, if we look hard enough, we will find love. She concludes her story saying that one moment shaped her entire life, and that she sees both of her grandmothers (Abby and Isabel) in herself.
The last scene is a brief clip of Will admiring a pregnant Abby.
Production.
In August 2016, FilmNation Entertainment acquired the film's script, by Dan Fogelman, who also directed the film; FilmNation had bought the script after it appeared on The Black List. Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey served as producers on the film under their Temple Hill Entertainment banner. In November 2016, Oscar Isaac joined the cast. In January 2017, Olivia Cooke, Antonio Banderas, Samuel L. Jackson, Olivia Wilde and Laia Costa were also added, and in March 2017, Annette Bening joined as well, alongside Mandy Patinkin and Alex Monner.
Principal photography began on March 13, 2017 in New York City, and continued in Spain in May.
Release.
In December 2017, a fierce bidding war for distribution rights for the film, fought between Amazon Studios, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures, concluded with Amazon Studios winning the rights with a $10 million dollar plus bid.
The film premiered on September 8, 2018 at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was theatrically released on September 21, 2018 in the United States. It was released on January 4, 2019 in the United Kingdom.
Reception.
Box office.
In the United States and Canada and China, "Life Itself" was released alongside "The House with a Clock in Its Walls", "Assassination Nation" and "Fahrenheit 11/9", and was projected to gross $4–6 million from 2,578 theaters during its opening weekend. It brought in $2.1 million over its first weekend, finishing 11th, behind a number of films that ranged from their second to seventh week in theaters. This was the second worst opening, since 1982, by a film that opened at over 2,500 theaters.
Critical response.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 13%, based on 144 reviews, with an average rating of 3.58/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A mawkish melodrama that means less the more it tries to say, "Life Itself" suggests writer-director Dan Fogelman's talents are best suited to television." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 21 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars and a 47% "definite recommend".
Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave the film a "D", saying: ""Life Itself" thinks you're stupid. Or, if not stupid, unable to understand how a movie should work. It's a movie made for people who can't be trusted to understand any storytelling unless it's not just spoon-fed but ladled on, piled high, and explained via montage and voiceover." A. O. Scott, chief film critic for "The New York Times", calls it an "inadvertently hilarious" film, filled with "parental slaughter ... (where) mothers and fathers are hit by buses, perish in car accidents, commit suicide and succumb to cancer," though he praises Isaac, Wilde, Costa, and Peris-Mencheta (playing the "starting" couples in the two countries) for their acting.