Director Ry Russo-Young on adding complexity to the 'mean girl' character

When director Ry Russo-Young first read the script for her new film, Before I Fall, she wasn't quite "on board" with the project. Yet as she continued to read she saw an opportunity to change what we expect from the "mean girl" characters in teen coming-of-age stories. "As I continued to read I was so surprised by the compassion and depth and the humanity that the story had and I was really moved by it."

Before I Fall follows Samantha, a regular high school student who is forced to relive the same day over and over again. Russo-Young tells host Tom Power that the use of this repetitive narrative allowed her to explore how much influence we have on one another. "People don't realize their own power, and that what they do actually effects other people," she says. 

Ry Russo-Young joins Tom to discuss reinventing the trope of the "mean girl" character and Friedrich Nietzsche's place in a teen coming-of-age story.

— Produced by Tyrone Callender