Veronika Decides to Die

2008's emotional bladder infection Twilight was created as a direct result of TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar was punished for her part in this with lead roles in both The Grudge and Scooby-Doo franchises. Now, freshly repentant and having reconciled with the film industry, she has returned to grace with an admirable performance in Emily Young's Veronika Decides to Die.

Based on the Paulo Coelho novel of the same name (in English anyway) Veronika Decides to Die is the story of a successful young woman, Veronika (played by Gellar) who tries to kill herself after deciding she is on a path towards a future she doesn't want. Unfortunately for her she fails and falls into a coma for several weeks, before being shipped to a mental institution where she is told damage incurred during the suicide bid will kill her within weeks.

Coelho's book focused on Veronika's freedom from constriction and her voyage of self-discovery as she came to terms with her imminent death and the freedom from responsibility that brought about. Young's film takes a more simplistic view and concentrates heavily on her love affair with Edward (Jonathan Tucker), a handsome young inmate who was struck silent after being involved a car accident. He is brooding and has pale skin. You don't see him outside during the day very much. He likes standing in the corner of darkened rooms. He's a wonderful artist.

Aside from similarities to her previous work, Gellar puts in a very strong performance as Veronika, although a confident supporting cast headed by Tucker as Edward and David Thewlis as the institution head Dr Blake help pull the film together during some of the duller moments.

As a serious exploration of anomie and the lack of control felt by many modern city-dwellers over their own lives, or a look at how removing the fear of death from our daily thoughts frees us, Veronika falls flat on its face. As a quirky little tale of love in a mental institution, it excels.

This is a story about a suicidal girl. At first I was enjoying it because I could relate to it. Veronika is institutionalized for wanting to commit suicide. Inside she rebels and tries to reject everyone around her. She plays the piano and this attracts a resident that is usually very solitary. With her music, she seems to reach something inside of him that might help bring him out of his shell. By feeling needed by someone else, we can all see value in our own lives and we can stop living for what we can do for ourselves, but what we can do for others and we can start to see our value and maybe what some of our talents are capable of. Veronika seems to come to these realizations as she explores reaching out to this male resident.

For years I had a soft spot for the novel 'Veronika Decides To Die', perhaps because Coelho approached the subject material with verve, originality, sensitivity and the understanding that comes only from having lived through something similar.

When I heard of the movie, I was hoping it was going to be handled with the same deft of hand the author had used with the original incarnation of the work. I was worried that a movie of this novel would be haphazard, overtly-dramatic and, frankly, a botched effort. So when Sarah Michelle Gellar became attached to the project I was seriously relieved. Here's an actor who is so under-rated, Gellar has a considerable talent: the ability to transcend genres as an actor and succeed at it. Why she has remained so under-rated in her industry I honestly can't understand.

Her interpretation of Veronika Deklava in Veronika Decides To Die, I'm sure will be defined as being the role of Gellar's career thus far. Gellar makes this movie. Most actors have previously taken similar roles and gone for the overtly-melancholic, Hollywood-style "despair" and self-loathing, making it fraught with unreal overtly emotional behaviour that anyone who has suffered severe depression/mental-illness can tell you is usually not accurate. What Gellar does here is employ subtly, strength and honesty. Her interpretation of Veronika's despair smacks of someone who knows what she's dealing with, or at least has studied the realism of such suffering with consideration: in real life, severe depressives almost always strive to hide their despair from most of those around them. Veronika does this in the novel, and Sarah Michelle Gellar uses her talents to do it with her approach to her role in the film, and the result is an astonishing performance from her.

Gellar's Veronika is somehow far more real and affecting a character than anything thrown out in the last twenty years (e.g: Girl, Interrupted/One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and to lesser degrees movies such as Thirteen, House of Sand & Fog, The Hours...). The movie is slow, but never does it bore, or seem sluggish. I sat rapt with attention, moved to tears and frequently wishing the movie were going at a slower pace due to the astonishing performance of Gellar & indeed the rest of the cast. If you look at the novel itself: this is about Veronika, and how she effects those around her, and this is what the movie focuses on and does so almost flawlessly.

A previous reviewer described Gellar's acting here as a tour-de-force performance, commanding the screen with a subtly, sensitive touch, fraught with mixed emotion, confusion & strength. The rest of the cast are equally on top form, Erika Christensen is sad yet charming, Jonathan Tucker and particularly Melissa Leo are great and highly memorable in their supporting roles.

Not for one second did I think Gellar's Veronika was "void of emotion", on the contrary it's a performance filled with clearly conflicting emotions, broiling beneath the surface, always just a moment away from bubbling to the fore yet nearly always controlled- it's clearly a thought out, hard-worked at performance and having been in Veronika's position, having felt those emotions myself, I can see it in Gellar's performance. Her acting skills get a full workout here, she excels herself and has, I think, raised the bar for other actors in portraying hopelessness, disillusion and mental illness on screen in a way that perhaps only Bjork did in a similar way with her quietly charming but clearly sad, disillusioned yet hopeful portrayal of Selma in Dancer in the Dark.

Alright things are missing in the movie that may have helped, but what they did here was concentrate on the core idea: Veronika. They took it in the right direction and truly, this film shines because of it. The outstanding, subtly & strength of (all) the acting, the beautiful cinematography, the perfectly suited soundtrack and a refreshingly intelligent, honed script have made Veronika Decides To Die not only one of my personal favourite films, but also undoubtedly one of the best movies I have seen in several years. See it, if not for your love of the novel, but for the performances, you will be rewarded.

It has no doubt set the bar for future movies dealing with similar subject material, it shows you can make films about depression and suicide without the irritating emotional circuses previously done in the industry. Coelho, no doubt is very proud- and I'm sure relieved! Sadly I think though it is certainly Oscar worthy stuff on display, I'm not sure due to its rather scattered release, the fact it is independent and unlikely to get as broad a release and publicity as is needed for Oscar contenders generally, it would be tragic if all the bloody great acting on show here does not get its deserved recognition. If I had not already been a major fan of Sarah Michelle Gellar's work before, I certainly would have been after this.

See it!

In New York, the middle-class Veronika Deklava (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a twenty and something year-old beautiful woman with a good job and a nice apartment. However, the feeling of emptiness of her pessimist view of life leads her to commit suicide with an overdose of pills. She fails in her intent and two weeks later she leaves the coma and awakes in a psychiatric institution directed by the unorthodox Dr. Blake (David Thewlis). She is informed that her OD injured her heart provoking an aneurysm and she has only a few weeks of life. Along the days, Veronika gets closer to the catatonic Edward (Jonathan Tucker), who was left in the institution many years ago. They feel attracted for each other and Veronika discovers the meaning of life again; they escape from the institution and decide to enjoy the miracle of each new day together.

The dramatic "Veronika Decides to Die" is based on the best-seller of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and has a magnificent performance of Sarah Michelle Gellar in the role of a suicidal young woman. Her complex character becomes aware of the simple things that make life so wonderful only after finding the meaning of love. The screenplay has great lines and discusses good points like the definition of insanity or the meaning of life. The cinematography and the stylish music score are very beautiful. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Veronika Decide Morrer" ("Veronika Decides to Die")

Everyone has different perception and here is mine. I wouldn't say that this movie was very bad or boring. It was not believable in my opinion. If you decide to commit suicide in your own home, you make sure the doors are locked and nobody is going to visit you in the next few days. In this film she did not even pass out before someone was already banging on her door and how did they come in? Let alone how did they find out? From the email she sent in response to an advertisement? From that on things were becoming even less realistic. A nut house that looks like a retreat for super rich. Not sure why her parents were even brought into the story. The sudden transformation from hating life to loving it was unsubstantiated. A guy? A silent guy who was sitting on a tree suddenly made her realize that life is worth living? Quite a stretch after she was cynical about guys and marriage and family life in general. The performances were okay. I did not watch any of her other movies prior to this one simply because they are not the movies I watch.The final scenes, after the escape, were dull, pretentious and unrealistic. This film just confirmed that I stick to foreign movies, which almost never disappoint me. Force Majeure is the latest one I enjoyed.