Before I Disappear Dir. Shawn Christensen

[IFC Films; 2014]

Styles: indie character study
Others: Garden State, Gloria, Leon The Professional, Queens Blvd (the fictional movie from Entourage TV show)

Today there’s an expectation for directorial debuts to come fully formed and perfectly predict the careers and talents of those involved. Slacker, Reservoir Dogs, Clerks, Swingers, George Washington or even this year’s fantastic The Babadook — these are films that seemed made by directors with years of experience instead of by newbies just entering the trade. True, it’s not always the case: Scorsese, De Palma, Coppola, Spike Lee, Spielberg, Park Chan-Wook, and Takashi Miike all delivered sloppy first full-length films. The maker of Boxcar Bertha is the same person who did Goodfellas; the person behind She’s Gotta Have It went on to create Do The Right Thing. But what all those messy first films share is an inkling of promise; a suggestion that these filmmakers can do something special, even if their films aren’t yet fully baked. It’s okay that the first time out isn’t perfect or a home run, as long the filmmakers do progress and learn from their mistakes (side eye over to Kevin Smith). Shawn Christensen’s Before I Disappear is a bungled debut based on his short film Curfew. But, assuming that this isn’t the peak of his abilities and that he can avoid creative stagnation, it does show a lot of promise that could lead to some truly engaging films in his future.

Writer and director Christensen also scored the film and stars as Richie, a ne’er do well, drug-using janitor who hangs out with club managers and other assorted lowlifes while he comes to accept his suicidal tendencies after the death of his girlfriend. He discovers the corpse of a woman in a bathroom stall one night and it sends him into his first active attempt on his own life, which is cut short when his estranged sister (Emmy Rossum) pleads for him to take care of her daughter Sophia (Fatima Ptacek) for a few hours. The film is an into-the-night type that takes place over the course of one day as Richie struggles with his morality, his niece, and his desire to end it all.

The problem here with having a multi-hyphenate handle so many different aspects of the film is that there are so many areas to critique. Firstly, the bad: Christensen is not a good actor. Looking like a strung out Michael Swaim, Christensen is constantly putting on too many affectations and trying too hard in his performance. In other hands, this character might have been played a bit subtler, instead of the obvious choices Christensen makes, like his constant smoking (in place of showing nihilism through actual acting) and terrible New Yawk accent.

To be fair, Christensen the actor is very much hindered by Christensen the writer, who injects Richie’s dialogue with so much clichéd 50s vocabulary that it becomes a morass of too hip antiquated speak. Calling women “birds” would be out of place in a poorly written version of A Blast Of Silence, and such phrases here sound distractingly forced. Furthermore, some of the plot’s elements (dubious debts that are never elaborated upon, highly addictive drugs that people can just stop doing due to the story’s requirements, an ephemera of underworld types) come across like the draft written by a sheltered teen whose only experience with the criminal element is studying old films on TCM. Richie’s supposed to be broke, but he lives in a large NYC apartment complete with a claw-foot bathtub and hip accoutrements like a phonograph, a boombox, a landline rotary phone, well-placed bottles and ashtrays, and other signifiers that this guy is hip and seedy but still accessible. It’s too forced, too on the nose, and too much Christensen.

And yet, there is still promise to be found within his directing abilities. There are sequences involving a dodgy club owner (Ron Perlman) that have real menace without ever uttering a single threat; there’s a dance sequence that actually works instead of feeling twee; and a scene at a summer solstice party that is incredibly unique. His work with other actors (particular Perlman, Rossum, and Ptacek) shows he’s able to have a softer touch with nuance when not dealing with his own performance. Ptacek’s Sophia is a cliché — the precocious child who is a robot but learns to lighten up thanks to her loser uncle. But the actress proves not only incredibly talented at gymnastics, dance, and speaking mandarin, but also at imbuing it all with a sad resignation that elevates her character beyond the confines of the script.

Few baseball players hit a home run their first time at bat. Christensen’s Before I Disappear is a flawed movie, and all of the flaws lay at his feet as he chose to do so much on his debut film. But it would be incorrect and shortsighted to dismiss him or his filmmaking abilities. He has an eye for scenes, a way with other actors, and an ability to capture color and shots that speaks to someone who will grow into a better director. This film isn’t great, but it does feature the hope that Christensen’s next project, and the one after that, will only improve if he can just get out of his own way.

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