{"id":11273,"date":"2025-03-05T23:33:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11273"},"modified":"2025-03-05T23:33:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:33:27","slug":"before-you-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/05\/before-you-know-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Know It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Before You Know It<\/strong> (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1091 Media\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (thematic elements, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hannah Pearl Utt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jen Tullock and Hannah Pearl Utt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ryan Tullock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jon Keng\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 6, 2019 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hannah Pearl Utt, Jen Tullock, Judith Light, Oona Yaffe, Mike Colter, Mandy Patinkin, Alec Baldwin, Arica Himmel, Peter Jacobson, Blake Berris, Ben Belcher, Tim Daly, Jenn Lyon, Linda Arroz.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $151,459 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0With a title as generic as Before You Know It<\/strong>, it\u2019s only natural to assume that the movie bearing said title will be completely ordinary. Despite the eccentric behaviors of the principal characters, the film isn\u2019t all that different from other comedic movies centered on troubled families trying to get through something together. At the same time, the writing-directing team of stars Hannah Pearl Utt and Jen Tullock bring a little something extra to this amusing comedy-drama about a family that isn\u2019t exactly dysfunctional but won\u2019t win any Family of the Year awards any time soon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Utt and Tullock play sisters Rachel and Jackie, both in their 30s and still living with their father Mel (Patinkin, Homeland) in the brownstone over the small Greenwich Village theater they own. You\u2019re not likely to find two siblings with personalities more opposite than this pair. Younger sister Rachel, the stage manager, is the more grounded of the two. She\u2019s the one who takes care of everybody and everything. Her familial obligations prevent her from having a life of her own. Actress Jackie, on the other hand, is a flake. Brash and completely without boundaries, she drinks too much and tries to hook up with men of the Mr. Wrong variety. As mother to an extremely angsty preteen, Dodge (Yaffe), she\u2019s either totally unreliable or way too much, there is no in-between for her. Mel, an actor-turned-playwright planning to stage his own work, is like a child. He has this larger than life personality that overwhelms everybody and everything around him. He\u2019s at once petulant and arrogant as expressed by the disrespectful acceptance speech that costs him a chance to stage his new play at a larger venue. He\u2019s a frustrating individual. The relationship between Mel and his daughter is a study in co-dependency.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Things change dramatically when Mel dies suddenly. Before the shock has a chance to wear off, Rachel and Jackie receive the more shocking news that the mother they were told was dead is alive and well and starring in a popular soap opera. She is Sherrell (Light, Who\u2019s the Boss?), an aging diva struggling to hold on to stardom. Jackie wants to go meet her; Rachel thinks it\u2019s a bad idea. Jackie goes to the studio and crashes a taping to announce that Sherrell is her mother. Rachel stands there mortified and speechless. The thing is that Sherrell is co-owner of the theater and they\u2019ll need to get in her good graces if they don\u2019t want her to sell it out from under them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of the problems with Before You Know It<\/strong> is that there are too many subplots, some of which go nowhere. Alec Baldwin appears in a couple of scenes as a therapist who sees Dodge as a client and Jackie as a lover. His involvement with the story feels completely superfluous. The same applies to the accountant, Charles (Colter, Luke Cage), who helps the girls straighten out the family finances after Mel\u2019s death. It seems like his wife\u2019s death being the cause of communication issues with his teen daughter Olivia (Himmel), who becomes close friends with friendless Dodge, will be a major plot point but it\u2019s dropped long before it\u2019s even close to resolved. Some business about Sherrell being in danger of being written off her show is handled in a perfunctory manner. Director Utt misses a golden opportunity to explore ageism as it pertains to women in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The highlight of Before You Know It<\/strong> is the acting especially as it pertains to character dynamics. Given the formulaic nature of the narrative, I became more focused on observing how the characters interacted with one another. Take Rachel and Jackie. Rachel always has to look out for her flighty, irresponsible older sister. Jackie thinks Rachel needs to lighten up. At one point, she kids Rachel for dressing like a \u201cMennonite caterer\u201d. Although Jackie confounds, exasperates and exhausts serious-minded Rachel, there is clearly sisterly love between the two. At the tender age of 12, Dodge can\u2019t even find the words to talk to her mother about her irresponsible behavior and how it\u2019s affecting her. For her part, Jackie doesn\u2019t see anything wrong until she starts to get to know her long-absent mother and sees the preferential treatment she affords Rachel. The film\u2019s most powerful scene is when Sherrell breaks down while explaining why she left and never tried to be part of their lives. At once, we see her raging narcissism and frail vulnerability. Light\u2019s performance is brilliant. Really, the whole cast does a great job with their performances. Utt and Tullock, longtime writing partners making their feature film debut, have amazing chemistry. In her first acting role, Yaffe shows great potential.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The humor in Before You Know It<\/strong> is more verbal than situational. What I mean is the dialogue is funnier than most of the situations. The movie\u2019s take on working on a soap opera has a parody-like feel a la Soapdish that feels out of place here. Jackie\u2019s run-in with a security guard in the TV studio parking lot feels like something out of a sitcom as does Rachel being mistaken for an auditioning actress. Before You Know It<\/strong> is markedly uneven in this respect. However, it does benefit from production design (by Katie Hickman) that perfectly conveys the characters\u2019 sense of claustrophobia in being stuck in a living situation from which there is no exit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t say I\u2019m wild about Before You Know It<\/strong> but I don\u2019t dislike it either. It\u2019s a movie in need of work. The script lacks plot development. It\u2019s a case of too much plot, too little development. Some of the characters can be a bit much but I suspect we all know people like that in real life. If nothing else, Before You Know It<\/strong> is an interesting near-miss. It shows real potential on the part of Utt and Tullock. They\u2019re good but not quite there yet.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before You Know It (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1091 Media\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (thematic elements, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hannah Pearl Utt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Jen Tullock and Hannah Pearl Utt\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ryan Tullock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jon Keng\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 6, 2019 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hannah Pearl Utt, Jen Tullock, Judith Light, Oona Yaffe, Mike Colter, Mandy Patinkin, Alec […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Before-You-Know-It-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11273"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11332,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273\/revisions\/11332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}