Eva Amurri is Susan Sarandon's daughter. It's a big deal, to be sure. Even bigger, however, is her jaw-dropping performance as virginal Maureen in director Vadim Perelman's latest drama. Below, the second generation proves she's got what it takes to be a first-rate actress.
Nick Haramis
April 17, 2008
By the time I approach the 20th floor of Manhattan's Regency Hotel, I've downed about seven large coffees. My hands are shaking something terrible. My heart is racing, and all I can think is, I've just spent twenty minutes in the same room as Uma fucking Thurman. My day was, well, sort of complete. And then I met Eva Amurri. Angled comfortably on a couch in the suite's living area, she flips through the New York Post absentmindedly. She no longer has the plastic cup of gummi bears she'd been carrying with her earlier that day. "Great bow tie," she says, as I reach out to shake her hand. I flush red. She looks every bit her mother, but it seems obvious and condescending, so I pass on the opportunity to lob a compliment back her way. She's stunning in person, so far from the dowdy, born-again Christian named Maureen she plays in Vadim Perelman's The Life Before Her Eyes, starring, yes, Thurman. In it, Evan Rachel Wood is Diana, a rebellious, life-affirming presence who, together with Maureen, finds herself at the mercy of a high school shooter. Unlike other films of its kind, Before Her Eyes focuses on friendship and love. Violence, while intrinsic to the plot, is pushed aside in favor of blooming adolescence. It's something the 23 year old can relate to, as she steps out from her mother's shadow in one of the most challenging films of the year. Hyperbole? Maybe. But, read on, because maybe it's not.
