Based on author Laura Kasischke's novel The Life Before Her Eyes,
House of Sand and Fog director Vadim Perelman's provocative study of memory, morality, and conscience stars
Uma Thurman as the guilt-ridden survivor of a harrowing, Columbine-like high-school shooting. To any outsider, Diana (played as a young girl by actress
Evan Rachel Wood) and Maureen (
Eva Amurri) were polar opposites; Diana was always questioning authority, while Maureen quietly went about fulfilling the expectations of her devoutly religious family. Yet it was precisely theses differences that drew the two girls to one another and found them gradually growing to become best friends. As with any anxious high-school student, Diana and Maureen both existed in that strange grey zone between childhood and adulthood that found them constantly pondering the endless possibilities that awaited them in the outside world. Flash forward years later, and Diana's (played as an adult by Thurman) life isn't anything like she imagined it would be as a young girl. As Diana's traumatic past gradually comes into focus, it soon becomes obvious that she was profoundly affected by a pivotal event that occurred just prior to her high-school graduation. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide