- Release year: 2025
- Director: Lucio Castro.
- Producers: Caroline Clark, Patrick Donovan, Anita Gou, David Hinojosa, and Luca Intili.
- Screenplay by: Lucio Castro.
- Cinematography by: Barton Cortright.
- Music by: Robert Lombardo and Yegang Yoo.
Synopsis: a pregnant woman goes through loss twice, each time warping more her perception of life and the reality that surrounds her.
Shotgun Commentary: honestly, it’s very much a love-it-or-hate-it kinda thing.
Review
After This Death is an experimental film that gets lost on its own experiment. Great for people who love to make up nonsense to feel deep and special, but not so much for anyone who actually wants to watch a film. Despite its promising beginning and a few fascinating twists, the film ultimately sinks in a sea of unfinished mysteries.
Going into the screening, you might expect a dark and puzzling narrative that combines art and murder and leaves you positively breathless, for good and for bad. Sadly, this isn’t The Neon Demon (2019), and as much as one strives to find a reason why actors like Lee Pace or Gwendoline Christie would accept to work on this film, the answer to that remains the only mystery worth remembering once the film is over.
Confusing circumstances
The story follows Isabel (Mía Maestro), a pregnant woman who likes hiking and cheating on her husband. You know, the typical hobbies one has. She meets the cult leader/singer of an indie band, Elliot (Lee Pace), and they hit it off. As one does when your partner, in this case Ted (Rupert Friend), has little to no weight whatsoever in your life. Isabel is so over her marriage that she decides to have an affair with Elliot, a man as dumb as he is desperate to prove he’s special but aloof about it.
The singer makes an art of hiding his stupidity with a whole lot of unfunded confidence. Proof of which is his blatant statement “I’m a great pussy eater”. For those of you who have watched How I Met You Mother (2005-2014), this is essentially the latest version of “the naked man” move, and surprisingly, it works. This totally heartfelt moment of oral sex in the driver’s seat of a car leads to a whirlwind romance in which the couple has pointless conversations about how special and different from everyone else they are and engage in feet fetishes to the point where you wonder if this has been produced by Tarantino.
After developing their intriguing relationship into a tedious one, tragedy strikes and things change. Elliot proves to be as much of a manchild as all the signs pointed at, and Isabel finds herself in the face of great loss and completely alone (because the husband remains pointless). From then on, there is a cacophony of moments. Some are creepy, fascinating and brilliant; but most of which are slow, tedious and borderline annoying.
THE highlight
The cast might be the only thing works in its entirety. Not only is its assembly the ultimate mystery of the feature, but every member is the perfect choice for their character. Pace plays a very similar role to the one he played in Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). A middle-aged man whose mind is still very much in its teenage years. Christie is fantastic as the quirky best friend, bringing all her charisma into the role and delivering the only truly compelling character of the whole piece.
As for the married couple, Maestro delivers a solid performance despite the slippery and vague nature of the film. As for Green… He is great, but being completely honest, he could’ve been substituted by a life-size cutout version of him, or a used sock, and nobody would’ve noticed. That’s how completely irrelevant he is.
All in all, After This Death is the type of film you can completely skip unless you are in the mood for creating conspiracy theories about what its ending means. In fact, anything you make up is guaranteed to be more interesting than what you actually watch. A bit like those texts with missing words, incomplete and pointless unless you put in the work to fill them with meaning yourself.
After This Death was part of the EIFF 2025 programme. Find all the info here!
Advice to take from this movie:
- Sometimes a story needs no ending. But sometimes, it really, REALLY does.
- Never trust a cast to save a film, some are just too far gone.
- Some films are made for you to go full hipster with random theories. And that is alright too.
What’s your take? Have you watched After This Death? Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀