Life After Beth - More American Indie with Aubery Plaza

Some American indie film action the other week resulted in watching Life After Beth.  A very weird film in which Dane DeHaan plays Zach, a young adult / teenager who's girlfriend Beth (Aubery Plaza) has recently died.  Zach enters a state of deep depression, in which he wishes he could have his time with her again.  By the very same film convention that allowed Bill Murray to live the same day over and over again, Beth is brought back to life as a zombie and returns to her family.  At first her family try to keep her return a secret from Zach, and then the fact she's a zombie from her.  But it's a facade that can only last so long.

It seems like the theme of the film is very much to be careful what you wish for.  In fact it very much has the feel of a fairy tale or a story from the bible where a character is tested and realises something about life.  Zach wishes he could see Beth again, but when she comes back it doesn't take very long before he realises it's a terrible idea.  Basically the message is that death is a natural part of life, and that as horrible at it feels when someone we love dies, it's a natural part of life as much as anything else.

Aubery Plaza acting style and range probably means that she's going to remain in the fringes of US cinema.  Anna Kendrick has a minor role here, but is someone I would expect to see winning an Academy Award at some point during her career.  She doesn't do too much here, and to be honest I'm a little surprised she's taking roles like this after being so good in Up in the Air and 50 / 50.  But then she's also been in a bunch of shlock recently (Twilight?) so maybe her career's stagnating.  Either way, Life After Beth is an entertaining film, but it doesn't warrant any more than the 3 paragraphs I'm giving it here.  When I saw its IMDB rating of 5.1 I thought it seemed a little low, but having seen the film it's a rating that looks fair enough to me.