After.Life

Format: DVD
Released By: Anchor Bay
Price: £17.99 
Availability: Out now

Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) and boyfriend Paul Coleman (Justin Long) are a couple who appear to have slowly fallen out of love - the spark is gone and the foibles that once seemed so endearing are now merely annoyances. Paul wants to save the relationship and when he gets the opportunity to take a well-paid job in Chicago he takes Anna out to dinner to propose. However the highly-strung Anna misunderstands and thinks they are breaking up. She storms out and drives off into the rainy night. Suddenly she’s caught in the bright headlights of oncoming traffic and everything goes… white.

She awakes in the local mortuary, run by Eliot Deacon (Neeson) whom she has recently encountered at the funeral of her old piano teacher. She is horrified to be informed that she was killed in a traffic accident and that Deacon is now preparing her body for her own funeral later in the week. He tells her he has the gift to talk to the dead and prepare them, but she’s convinced that this is some sadistic trick. Equally the emotionally fraught Paul, frozen out by Anna’s estranged family and Deacon  begins to suspect some nefarious activity as well. Over the next few days, both Anna and Paul try to find out the reality of the situation with Deacon observing their every move with plans of his own.

After.Life is one of those films which you are initially tempted to rent/buy/watch because of the cast involved (Neeson, Ricci and Long all have impressive résumés) and the somewhat novel and spooky nature of the premise itself. Being buried alive or even waking up on the slab are very primal fears only further fed by the classic horror outings and occasional real-life tabloid news-story. And so, initially, there’s a fair amount of good faith to trade on here. Ricci is known to pick her roles well, having essayed a series of challenging roles taking her from former child-star to serious  and daring character-actress and here she’s well-cast as a character who is far from perfect and not always likeable. Neeson is also usually reliable, able to turn that quiet, stoic demeanour to either hero, villain or somewhere in between.

Here, the movie knows what some of your expectations are and despite falling back on a number of clichés, it manages to throw in some curveballs which leave you doubting those initial presumptions. However yet again, we have a movie in which the third act fails to live up to the deadly promise of its beginnings and the writers fumble when asked to come to some sort of satisfactory resolution. It’s fine to play both sides of a coin and somewhat wrong-step an audience in several scenes, but in a movie like this the climax has to offer some sort of  satisfactory solution to the problems or the viewer feels cheated.

After.Life (the full-stop/period really more of an affectation than anything appropriate to the story and with a DVD cover that feels half-heartedly PhotoShop’d) wants to have its ‘wake’ and eat it and sadly that means that by the time the credits roll, you’re more likely to be furrowing your brow and thinking ‘Wait, what about..?’   This is something of a shame because throughout there’s actually considerable potential to rise above the mundane and take the story in a number of diverse directions that could have paid off nicely. In reality, there simply proves to be TOO many misdirections and instead it goes for the art house approach… and feels unreal, rather funeral and half-hearted rather than enigmatic.

Fans of those involved may well still appreciate the movie and it’s all competently shot and performed in earnest, but in the end audiences may choose to go towards something lighter.

7/10