What Death Leaves Behind will catch you off guard

What Death Leaves Behind will be hitting select theaters across the US over the next few weeks. Should you be looking for a screening?

What Death Leaves Behind is an independent thriller that comes to us from Artist Rights Distribution and Smash Entertainment. Khalil McMillan plays the lead, Jake Warren, in just his second role and his first feature. As the synopsis will tell you, What Death Leaves Behind is a movie about a man who receives a kidney transplant and starts having nightmares that he believes are the memories of his donor. However, the movie is much more than that.

Within the first 10 minutes, it was clear that the synopsis was there to get my mind leaning in one direction and I actually appreciated that. Going in with that knowledge and creating those expectations left me vulnerable for the movie to affect me the way it did, catching me off guard.

The Non-linear style

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What Death Leaves Behind is prefaced by the definition of the term non-linear. Without this giveaway at the beginning, the movie would be very confusing for a while. That’s because the events of the film are not laid out in order and if you aren’t ready for this it will cause you to miss key points.

The majority of the events in the film seem to run in three different points in Jake’s life. Before he gets sick, after he gets sick, and after he gets his transplant. This apparently spans at least seven years because we see him in one scene being congratulated for his brand new baby girl and in a prior scene we see him with a young girl who is just barely school-aged. This helps paint the picture of the man and how he changed over the years.

I personally think that this was a great choice for the film because of the budget, for one, and the fact that it would have been a much less interesting movie done linearly. The fact that the events aren’t laid out in order allowed the writers/director to mess with you a bit more and give you bits and pieces without letting you see the full picture of what had happened leading up to that point until they wanted you to have it.

The choice keeps you on your toes as a viewer and adds to the mystery element in the film. This choice is what takes What Death Leaves Behind from being an average, passable film, into a multiple film festival award winner.

Dialogue

For me, dialogue can make or break a movie. If it’s bad, if I don’t think the characters are talking like people would in their situations or like people do in real life, I’m completely tuning it out. Dialogue that was written by someone who can’t relate to their characters is usually obvious.

In the case of What Death Leaves Behind, there are several scenes that almost didn’t feel like acting. Especially the scenes between Jake and Lisa Warren. Lisa is played by Shaira Barton (Pivot Point, House of Cards) and she had a few moments where she lit up the screen. Jake is not a very talkative or expressive guy and his wife Lisa has a big personality. This dynamic alone hit home and then their conversations were in my kitchen.

The couple is having money issues while Jake is ill and their conversation about money was way too real. I would venture to guess that some of this scene was improvised.

The pacing

Going back to the non-linear style, this helped the pacing as well. Had it played through chronologically there were several points where the movie would have gotten stale and by breaking the film up they were able to place more intense scenes between the dull scenes. This also helped set us up for what happens at the end and will have you trying to go back and put together the clues along the way that got us here.

Overall

All things considered, I did enjoy What Death Leaves Behind. I expected to know how the movie was going to play out and it caught me off guard in a few ways.

I enjoyed the way that they allowed the lead to somewhat remain himself. He was a low-key type of guy and he remained that throughout. There were only a few times we saw him get out of character and the reasons for this are presented. It’s watching him remain calm, cool, and collected up to this point that allows those moments to hit the way they do.

What Death Leaves Behind will be hitting select theaters across the country over the next two months so check for a showing near you.