Film Review: After.Life
After.Life (2009)
Directed by: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
Starring: Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, Justin Long
Studio: Anchor Bay Films
Review by: Britt Hayes
Anna Taylor (Ricci) is experiencing something strange. She feels emotionally disconnected, especially in her relationship with Paul (Long), she gets a nosebleed in the shower, and as she’s leaving the elementary school where she serves as a teacher, the lights in the hallway start turning off as she walks by. After an argument with Paul at a nice restaurant, Anna gets into a car accident and wakes up on a slab in a funeral home. She is greeted by Eliot Deacon (Neeson), a calm and sort of eerie man who informs her that she is in fact dead, but only he can hear her and see her as she truly is. At first she can’t move or walk, but over the next 24 hours Anna begins to walk around the funeral home, tearing the place up in fits of anger and denial, and begging Eliot to let her out because she isn’t dead. Or is she?
After.Life plays an interesting game of teeter totter with the viewer, where we never know if Anna is or isn’t dead. As soon as you think you’ve come to a conclusion, the plot shifts in the other direction, making you second guess your assertions. Anna’s struggle is our own as we’re guided through this strange journey from first time director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (Please shorten your name to Vos. Sincerely, all writers.)
The film is beautifully shot and visually captivating, but one wonders what the purpose is. Is there some symbolism we’re supposed to pick up on? If so, it’s all very vague. The plot is suspenseful and effective, but the film itself drags at times. I found myself bored on a few occasions, but when After.Life picks up, it goes full-throttle. Vosloo doesn’t rely on quick-cuts and loud editing to get your attention. Instead, she relies on the actors and their emotions (or, in Deacon’s case, a creepy lack thereof).
Neeson plays Eliot Deacon cool and collected, never losing his temper when Anna tears up the parlor or becomes aggressive. He tickles her emotions as if he’s playing a piano – determined and always calm. In this way, we’re never sure of Deacon’s motivations, and when his emotions finally crack the surface during a compelling speech on the living and the dead, you may cock and eyebrow and question his intentions. Deacon’s argument is sound: the living are the real dead, walking around wasting their lives, while the dead suffer silently in graveyards, yearning to be alive again because they wouldn’t waste a precious moment. It is perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole film.
After.Life suffers occasionally from the aforementioned slow pacing, but where the film really struggles is with editing. As a first time director, Vosloo doesn’t seem to know when to end a scene. Yes, Christina Ricci is beautiful, and I’d be hard-pressed to complain about her naked body, but there are only so many times I can see her gracefully get up and lay back down while the camera lingers as she shifts her legs to give only the slightest hint of her pelvic region. Mostly, Vosloo just has an issue with letting her camera linger for far too long after a scene has ended. Sometime in the middle of the film I became almost as disconnected as Ricci’s Anna initially is. A healthy dose of editing could remedy this problem easily.
Another complaint lies with the use of CGI. While most of the effects are done gorgeously, one scene in particular sticks out as an eyesore. I can’t pinpoint it here without spoiling one of the more visually engaging moments in the film, but there is some CGI blood mixed in with a practical visual effect that is glaringly obvious and almost cartoonish.
Justin Long feels completely out of place in dramatic roles. Long should stick to straight comedic fare like Accepted or the occasional romantic comedy. He has no place in horror, or dramatic horror for that matter. Ricci does a fine job here but fails to break free from her little girl voice to give a convincing plea for her life. At times she felt like she wasn’t giving 100%, but she still towered over Long’s oft-bland performance that feels like he was merely rolling out of bed to come to set for five minutes. On the other hand, Long does stick out twice in the film: once, during an emotional confrontation with Deacon, and again when he back hands an eleven year old in a scene that feels like it was stolen right out of 70′s B-grade horror.
Aside from these complaints, After.Life is a suspenseful film that will leave you guessing as long as you’re willing to suspend your disbelief for an hour and forty minutes. Naturally, the plausibility of the plot is slim, but if you set aside your cynicism, you may find yourself quite pleased with the subtle twists and turns. And that’s where Vosloo succeeds: subtlety. With each twist, Vosloo doesn’t shove the answers down your throat. She cleverly manipulates you and then gently shows you the clues and guides you to the right conclusions, making the plot twists more effective.
After.Life suffers from the occasional downturn, but recovers gracefully with a powerful conclusion.
Some have already given After.Life poor reviews, but I’ve failed to see their explanations. Most have just said that the plot is too implausible. But that’s what film does: it’s an escape from our everyday reality into the unreal. If all of our films were mere expressions of reality, we wouldn’t see the point in watching film. If you want reality, watch a documentary.
