Uma Thurman in The Life Before Her Eyes. (Photo courtesey Magnolia Pictures)

'The Life Before Her Eyes' is just as beautiful as its lead actresses, Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. Based on the Laura Kasischke novel of the same name, the film opens by establishing the friendship of a two teen girls, Diana (Wood) and Maureen (Eva Amurri). Flash forward a year later: As the two gaze upon their relatively pristine visages in the mirror, a gun-mad teen is hunting through the school, gunning down teachers and student. He bursts open the restroom door and gives Diana and Maureen a choice. One of them has to die, but which one?

Flash forward 15 years or so, and Diana (Thurman) is a grown woman, with a professor husband and an adorable child who's apt to be just as wild as her mother. The 15th anniversary of the school shooting approaches, and Diana's conscience is racked with guilt over the outcome.

"The Life Before Her Eyes" comes across like a Lifetime movie of the week. It's full of the same creepy longing and weirdness as TV camp favorite "The Haunting of Sarah Hardy," but it never gets the full-on tone of a ghost story. Likely, the problems arose in attempting to translate a 8poetic narrative into a functional screenplay.

Director Vadim Perelman ("House of Sand and Fog") has the film looking gorgeous and at times evoking emotions; it just seems that the script could have used a rewrite. It's not bad, but the dialogue is rough, and the flashbacks are not smooth.

Flashbacks can be an effective device, but "The Life Before Her Eyes" plays out like an overactive teenager who's just discovered her call waiting button; the jumps from the present to the past are jolting, and the timeline gets jumbled all over the movie. Viewers will probably spend the first half-hour wondering if Thurman has aged only 15 years and, if so, when will they learn how that 15 years played out?

As for Thurman and Wood, both are decent actors, but the two don't look that much alike. The other characters in the movie are treated like disposable razors. They come in, draw a little blood, then get tossed away.

"The Life Before Her Eyes" is one of those flicks that hinges on the ending. Yes, the ending explains the movie, but would that filmmakers put their efforts into creating an overall seamless film.