"After.Life" is Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vooslo's feature-film debut, starring Christina Ricci, Justin Long and Liam Neeson in a deliberation on what happens to us after we die.
I will admit, my expectations for "After.Life" were in the low
I was considering something along the lines of "I Know Who Killed Me", with a better cast. At least the trailer made it seem that way. Oh, how wrong I was. Dead wrong.
Anna (played by Christina Ricci) is a schoolteacher who finds herself with an open head wound on a dissecting table where Elliot (Liam Neeson), a mortician, informs her in a formal tone that she died during a car accident. Anna's disbelief and denial follow immediately. It's not the kind of news you hear everyday. Questions pop-up. Is she suffering from a mental disease, some personality disorder or maybe there is no rational explanation for the occurring events - it is what it is? In other words: WHAT IS GOING ON? The intrigue has a strong grip on the audience
. More than a horror film, it's a psychological drama with a supernatural theme to it, although it manages to divert in a bad direction on occasion (the heart-pulling scene is as horror cliché as it gets).
Neeson gives Elliot a priest-like treatment. He's a man with a great work ethic, utter respect for the dead, and blessed/cursed with a gift. He can talk to the deceased. Throughout the days that he prepares Anna's body for her funeral, he tries to help her cope with her death. Unfortunately for him, she doesn't buy into his views and attempts to escape and contact her fiancé (Justin Long), who, because of her death, is in a fever-like state, where he starts to questions his sanity.
I would say that this is Neeson's most memorable performance in a while. It just has such
resonance.
We all know that Christina Ricci isn't the best actress around in Hollywood, very flavorless, but in this case, by draining the life out of the role she, coincidentally, makes it work. I guess the director did the best with what she had to work with. Also the fact that she was willing to stay half-nude throughout a considerable amount of time on screen must have made her most desirable as a corpse from a producer's point of view.
The film doesn't indulge on the visuals; rather, it keeps everything on the minimum—just enough to keep you shivering. The eerie music is certainly a strong tool that ads on to the feel of heighten reality.
Luckily, "After. Life" is not just good as it's synopsis. Sure, the film takes elements from various horror films, but it puts them to a really good use. It builds around them and evolves.
