The legendary actor stars in a rare dramatic role in the chilling AppleTV+ series from writer Sarah Thorp.
Plot: Eli is a child psychiatrist who, after recently losing his wife, Lynn, encounters a troubled young boy, Noah, who seems to have a haunting connection to Eli’s past. As Eli attempts to help Noah, their mysterious bond deepens, sparking haunting memories and unearthing unsettling secrets about the past.
Review: Billy Crystal is not known for his dramatic performances. To be fair, the legendary comedic actor has delivered performances that blend humor with serious moments, notably in projects like When Harry Met Sally, Throw Mama From The Train, and Mr. Saturday Night. Crystal has not headlined a fully dramatic project in his fifty-year career, making Before something of a surprise. A psychological thriller with elements of horror and mystery Before is a challenge for any performer, let alone a seventy-six-year-old like Billy Crystal. With an interesting premise and many twists and turns, Before is another unique offering from AppleTV’s growing library of thrillers. Even with short episodes and lots of build-up, this series struggles to stick the landing after building itself up for a shocking conclusion.
In Before, Crystal plays renowned child psychiatrist Eli Adler. Having recently lost his wife, Lynn (Judith Light), to suicide, Eli is on the verge of retirement when a young boy named Noah (Jacobi Jupe) appears outside his front door. Eli tries to help him, but Noah runs. Eventually, Eli is assigned his case when Noah begins experiencing erratic and strange behavior noticed by his foster mother, Denise (Rosie Perez). Eli immediately feels a connection to the child, and as he tries to unpack the cause of his trauma, Eli begins to see a connection to himself. Through the ten-episode series, Before shifts from surreal dream sequences to medical tension to horror elements as it forges a narrative about how the past comes back to haunt the present. As Eli becomes more and more engrossed in trying to help Noah, Before makes us question whether or not Eli is slipping into psychosis or if what we see is actually happening.
Broken into half-hour episodes, Before moves quickly as each chapter reveals more clues about what is really going on. Having seen films and series about similar subjects, I was able to predict several revelations that Before seems to think are more clever than they actually are. The story itself does not seem to know what it wants to be as the teases and red herrings pile up in one narrative direction that is substantially different from where the finale wraps things up. Many questions are answered, with others left to be assumed by the viewer based on clues shown on screen. There is a complexity to the explanation of what this whole story means that some may find disappointing or underwhelming. In contrast, others will surely be entranced by the connections forged throughout the series. I found myself less than impressed by the answer to the mystery as it feels like it did not warrant the investment in a full season, even if it only amounts to about five hours in total.
While the story is on the weak end, the performances are excellent. Billy Crystal is impressive in a role with him on screen for almost every minute of the series. Crystal gets to use his sense of humor several times through Before, but it is sparingly peppered to allow the dramatic side of the role to take precedence. Crystal has a presence like Eli’s that makes him feel both fatherly and welcoming as a doctor, and he is believably unhinged as reality splinters around him. Crystal’s scenes with Judith Light are very sweet and are some of the most emotionally impactful moments on television this year. The supporting cast, including Rosie Perez, Hope Davis, Robert Townshend, and Maria Dizzia, is excellent, but young Jacobi Jupe is the most impressive. The younger brother of Noah Jupe, Jacobi has to convincingly play a nine-year-old in the throes of mental distress that could be anything from supernatural possession to true psychological trauma. Jupe is impressive beyond his years for an actor as young as he is.
With episodes directed by Adam Bernstein, David Petrarca, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, and Zetna Fuentes, Before comes from showrunner Sarah Thorp. Thorp has experience writing psychological thrillers, having penned the 2004 Ashley Judd film Twisted, the 2019 remake of Jacob’s Ladder, and the story for the 2013 film The Truth About Emanuel. She also wrote the rom-com The Bounty Hunter and served as showrunner on the Omen prequel series Damien. Writing five of the ten episodes of Before alongside Emmy Grinwis, Desta Tedros Reff, Howie Miller, Joseph Sousa, and Audrey Rosenberg, Sarah Thorp tries a kitchen sink approach to this story. At the outset, there is a surreal and menacing aura that hints at a potential ghost story, which then shifts into a medical thriller before returning to something supernatural. As the story progresses, Thorp seems to lose control of the narrative as so many of the mysteries introduced in the first half of the series need to be tied together in a way that defies logic, even for a fictional story such as this.
If it had not been for the impressive dramatic turn from Billy Crystal, I would have completely written off Before as a failed project. The story does not come together well enough to hold up against similarly themed projects. There was a lot of potential for Before to mine territory that has been done previously and still delivers a satisfying tale. As it is, Before combines several ideas that do not gel in the end, as the big revelation does not deliver what the build-up was heading toward. The cast is all very good, especially Billy Crystal and young Jacobi Jupe, but the sum does not equal the parts. I wish I liked this series a lot more. Still, the most I can say for it is that the atmosphere it creates filled me with the requisite dread and anxiety that a good scary story should, but it fails to come together in a way that elicits anything more than a shrug and an eye-roll.
Before premieres on October 25th on AppleTV+.
