After.Life

Reviewed by Mike Kamrowski

After.Life is the definition of a good movie that got little publicity. It really slipped through the cracks, so much so that I didn't even hear about it until a week ago. The strange part is... how the HELL did this happen?

The film was entertaining, suspenseful, very clever and unique, had a great cast and the camera work was top notch. So what happened here!?

After.Life follows Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci), a small town elementary school teacher as she goes from being alive to, well, being dead. We follow Anna on her final day of living, as she has a strange morning-sex incident with her boyfriend, Paul (Justin Long), to her trip to work and helping one of her students, Jack (Chandler Canterbury), after he gets teased by some older kids. She then attends the funeral of her old piano (?) teacher. Here we see funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) and how Anna reacts to the dead body. She then heads off to dinner that night where, unbeknown to her, Paul plans on proposing to her. He never gets the chance, however, and they end up getting into a fight. She storms off into the rain where a combination high emotions and bad driving skills and weather lands her smack into the back of an 18 wheeler (let's also not forget that she is a "she"- not surprised she died in a car accident...).

The rest of the movie takes place in Deacon's funeral home, where Anna, who still seems very much alive, tries to come to terms with her death. It's revealed that Deacon has the ability to speak with the dead, which he uses to help guide them into the afterlife (OMG IT'S THE MOVIE TITLE!!!). He doesn't want them to end up in, I don't know, Limbo or something, so he gives Anna (and apparently all the dead bodies that come his way) advice about dying and the funeral process. He is very calm about this, even when Anna flips a shit on him and breaks everything in the basement "autopsy" room Deacon uses to store and prepare the dead- it also happens to be under lock and key which is a bit odd, but there are some weird perverts out there. Anna is pretty sure she isn't dead, as is Paul, who is going crazy throughout the week leading up to Anna's funeral.

Paul is very upset about the whole incident, and who wouldn't be. One second you're about to propose to your girlfriend and the next second she's all sorts of dead- no thanks. So Paul goes to try and see his dead girlfriends body, but Deacon won't let him. Not family. Can't do it. Not possible.

What a dick.

So Paul is pissed and he tries to get some of his police friends to get him a search warrant so he can go see the body and check if Anna is actually dead or not. The circumstances behind the death are pretty fishy, and Paul, who just so happens to be an up-and-coming lawyer, doesn't like it one bit. There was no autopsy on Anna and the paramedics did nothing but check her pulse- the medical examiner signed the death certificate and off she went to the funeral home. Hmm....

Unfortunately, all his police friends think he's fucking nuts and just needs to grieve, which is understandable. Except Paul thinks that maybe Anna was drugged- he talks about a drug that can slow a persons heart rate and make them appear dead, and one of the other cops agrees with him. Still, nothing comes from it and Paul is shit out of luck, the poor bastard.

Meanwhile, Anna ends up stealing Deacon's key and manages to escape the basement and call Paul. Paul answers, but he can't hear Anna all that well and he dismisses it as a prank. At the same time, Jack, passing by the funeral home, sees Anna in the window. He later confronts Deacon about this, where Deacon goes on to tell him that some people have a special ability to see the dead. Perhaps Jack is one of these people...

The movie ends with a whole bunch of stuff that I don't want to get into because you JUST HAVE TO GO SEE THIS MOVIE. It really keeps you guessing the entire way through. Is Ricci still alive? Did Neeson just drug her and now he's about to kill her, but he wants her to suffer and think that she's actually dead and regret never doing anything with her life? Is everyone dead? Is this all a dream? What's up with Ricci's nipples, why do they look all weird and smooshed?

Well, I guess I could tell you a few secrets about the movie, but read the next section only if you want to ruin the end for yourself. If not, skip the rest of the review and come back after you've seen the film!

*SPOILER ALERT* Through all the guessing and "what-ifs", it's actually pretty obvious what happened- you just had to know where to look and what to take away from certain parts. Liam Neeson is a serial killer who, by way of funerals, chooses who to kill next. Don't ask me how he chooses them at funerals; the only example we see is with Ricci where he has little to no contact with her at all- perhaps he just "knows". He is upset with the world and the "corpses" that inhabit it. All they do is "piss and shit and breathe the air" that other "real" and "living" people deserve. His message, and ultimately the message of the film itself, is to live life to the fullest and don't take it for granted.

Since this is true, Neeson is actually a killer... shit! Did you see all those pictures he has on his wall!? Those are all of his victims. What a lunatic. And why keep them alive? Why not just kill them and not have this strange talk with them? Maybe he likes the power of being an "adviser" to the recently deceased and making these individuals feel bad about themselves and the seemingly pointless lives they've lived and the lack of appreciation they had for their lives.

He causes his victims "deaths" by forcing them to get into car accidents. It's his white van we see tailgating Ricci right before her accident. When Ricci hits the truck in front of her and "dies" Neeson is there to give her a shot of the drug that is used to paralyze people and slow their heart rate down, making them appear dead. He is a trusted member in the community, so when he tells the police/medics he thinks Ricci is dead, everyone believes him because she is (or so she appears due to the accident and injection from Neeson).

Other signs that Ricci is still alive, besides her being able to fucking walk around, talk, breathe and so on, can be seen in the scene where she tries to call Paul. Not only does Paul hear her on the phone, but Jack sees her in the window and we are able to see the fog created by her breath on the mirror she stands in front of. Dead people don't have breath that can fog up a mirror, but then again, dead people can't fucking walk around, talk, breathe and so on. Idiots.

I also enjoyed how Neeson tricked Jack into thinking he can also see ghosts. It looks like he has an apprentice to his strange plan to rid the world of people who don't get the most out of life. A sequel to this movie is out of the question, as the best part of After.Life was trying to figure out who was dead and if Neeson was a killer or not. WHICH HE WAS.

Overall, this film was a real treat. Interesting story, great twist at the end (although you could really see it coming), great cast (Neeson was a bit toned down) and good message. I'm glad I heard about it and I'm glad Netflix had it on Instant. Oh Netflix... where would we be without you?

Also, naked Christina Ricci.

Rating: 4 out of 5