Before I Disappear (2014)

I stumbled on, "Before I Disappear," one late night while surfing through the seemingly endless titles offered by Netflix. The summary I skimmed piqued my interest and I am still in awe of how this comparatively low budget movie holds up. After multiple views, I cannot overstate how much I enjoy this film.Really, it comes down to the relationship between the main character and his niece. Believable character and relationship development is one of the hardest aspects of a movie to do correctly. This is an excellent example of how to do the aforementioned with ease and grace.The icing on the cake is the inclusion of a killer soundtrack including one of my favorite songs of all time: "Elephant," by Tame Impala.My absolute favorite movie I have ever found on Netflix, and now that I have started talking about it, I have the urge to go watch it again.

"Before I Disappear" is a long version of movie "Curfew". It tells about a troubled-life uncle that has been helping his sister by watching her daughter in her apartment because his sister had some also trouble private matters. I myself really appreciate this movie because the one and only reason: The main story or the core idea that makes this movie goes around really touching and lead the plots dramatically. That idea is about family bound as a very tight and powerful bound to face hard life. On the movie we are told that the uncle had fought, taken drugs, did illegal jobs, surrounded by bad people, disappointing his girl, and other things that you could define "bad guy". He is also considered as a really bad guy by his sister. A really interesting plot in this movie is that finally his sister knows what the family bound means and starts to respect her bigger brother. There are many family values and morals that the audience could have by watching this movie, for example how to build a good relationship between uncle- niece, how to become a single mother, how to become a good daughter, and how to respect family member, even though he/she had trouble past. Not much this kind of drama on today's American slapsticks and drama comedy's era. Good job for the directors, casts, and all the crew!

This is a hard movie to get into, mostly because it has a very dark and ugly beginning. It is the bathroom of a night spot and the main character, Richie, is inspecting each one to see toilets filled with urine and feces, even on the toilet seat, it must represent the filthiest toilet in all of Manhattan. And then he finds a pretty dead young lady on the final toilet, a victim of an overdose.The next scenes aren't much better, Richie is an his bathtub with a razor blade, intending to kill himself. So for me the rest of the movie was an uphill exercise to see if there was any redeeming value in watching it. I actually skipped to the last third of the movie and after seeing that I went back and viewed the parts I had skipped. Written, directed, and starring Shawn Christensen as Richie, it is about a 30-something guy with a job at a bowling alley, in debt to some gangsters, and still in grief over his beloved Vista who had recently taken her own life. The only thing he can see is ending it all and joining Vista. Until his younger sister, a single mom, calls him after years of estrangement with an urgent need for Richie to meet her 11-yr-old daughter at her school and get her home safely.That cute and smart daughter is Fatima Ptacek as Sophia, and she is the main reason to watch the entire movie. In real life she is studying Mandarin, and also appears to be in gymnastics. She plays her role perfectly and in the end she warms up to Richie. His having a niece that cares about him just might give him some reason to live.The sister and mother of Sophia is played well by New Yorker Emmy Rossum. She is also a mess of sorts and when she gets brought into central lockup after an altercation it prolongs the time Richie has to stay with Sophia, and for him to consider his options.Not for every taste, much of it is at night and shows the seedy underbelly of New York, but for those in the right frame of mind can be a worthwhile viewing. I found it on Netflix streaming movies.SPOILERS: Sis got into trouble because she was having an affair with a married man and the wife got involved. One of Richie's friends came to the rescue, asking a lawyer to help out. She was grateful for Richie's help but when he got home he resumed his interrupted suicide mission. But then the phone rings again. At first he disconnects it, determined to not be sidetracked again, but is curious and plugs the phone back in. It is his sis inviting him to dinner in a few days with her and Sophia, he pauses, thinks, and says "I'll be there."

Richie is so stressed out with all the combinations of missing his girl Vista, out of a job, and most dominantly drugs consumption effects. He knows that this can out right be his last day to live due to being out of money to get more drugs. Suddenly his distanced sister Maggie calls, yelling at her asking for a favor to pick up her daughter Sophia from school. Richie and Maggie hasn't contact each other for about five years. But Richie agrees to help. Looking dosed, he picks up Sophia, who immediately emits a very non-friendly aura on him. Richie goes home after Sophia tells him he can do so. At home he finds out that his friend wrongly supplied menopausal treatment pills to him.Maggie calls her again, furious to know that Richie left Sophia alone. Richie then picks up Sophia and takes her away from Maggie's apartment on Maggie's orders due to her being arrested. He tells Sophia that he used to draw cartoon on flip books. One of the characters he created was named Sophia, which Maggie really liked. Richie doesn't want Sophia In his place, so he takes her to other places instead. He takes her to a bowling alley but she prefers to do her homework there. The alley's owner Gideon asks Richie about Gideon's girl, to which he doesn't answer completely honest. Richie then takes Sophia to his ex apartment to retrieve his old flip books but the visit terrifies her. Sophia is calmed after seeing the flip book. Richie's drug effects takes a toll on him as he suddenly bleeds. Sophia rushes to save him and succeeds. Richie also goes and beats Maggie's ex husband for mocking Sophia. Richie takes Sophia while he meets his drug seller Bill. He remembered seeing Gideon's girl dying on Bill's toilet. He immediately takes Sophia out of there. As Sophia asks, Richie explains the distanced relationship between him and Maggie. Richie takes Sophia back to Maggie's place as Sophia asks. He can't get in because the guards there kick him out due to property distraction earlier that day. He goes to Gideon and tells the truth. He then goes back home and imagines Vista again.Okay, the story tried to mix in the fairly distanced concepts of a drug addict's world and family reconciliation, the latter being the more dominant. I have to say that it is quite an attempt. Yet it sure does result in a not so tight finished product of a story. The two main concepts alternately fill the movie's focus from time to time. But the movie finds it hard to have the two concepts at a combined focus on a single event on screen.The story goes quite well enough with its way of approaching its themes alternately. Quite frankly it feels like quite a stable story of two alternating sub stories. The momentum building is nice and the conflict unveils itself neatly. At the focus of Richie's addiction, it's nice to see how he fights to get a grip on things of life, even though today may be his last day. At the family reconciliation between Richie and Sophia, it's nice to see how Richie unfolds detail by detail of him and Maggie to Sophia, changing Sophia's view to him.But it proves that the movie finds it hard to give the one final touch for its ending. The final conflict, or should I say conflicts, seem off in connection to the hallucinated and spiteful story building of the entire movie duration. The confrontation with Gideon feels quite stupid to me despite it's very nice of Richie to square things off with him. The conversation with the released Maggie feels quite right and it's nice to see that Maggie gives in a little bit to include Richie in Sophia's life. Yet it doesn't really connect to Richie 's drug problem.The acting overall is just a decent work. Shawn Christensen did well in depicting the dosed yet caring uncle who voluntarily steps out of his niece's life to help her from bad influence such as he is. His expressions are very nicely done; the glazed stare, the angry outbursts, the painful moments. Fatima Ptacek did very good in portraying the distanced yet slowly drawn back in niece. She is nicely confident in her acting as seen on the difference between the assassin-face gymnastics and the bowling alley dancing scenes.For me Before I Disappear (2014) is worth a 5 out of 10 score. It's a good job in overall but it could have been even better if only the story can give a better final conflict and ending. A recommendation is unfortunately out of the question for me.