Directed By James Kent

Starring – Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgard, Jason Clarke

The Plot – Set in postwar Germany in 1946, Rachael Morgan (Knightley) arrives in the ruins of Hamburg in the bitter winter, to be reunited with her husband Lewis (Clarke), a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an unexpected decision: They will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower (Skarsgård) and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal.

Rated R for sexual content/nudity, and violence including some disturbing images

POSITIVES

– Strong ensemble. Knightley continues to shine under tremendous pressure, channeling a combination of loneliness and longing that gives much of her character arc the emphasis of urgency. Likewise, her tremendous chemistry with Skarsgard is unavoidable, blazing a trail of obviousness between them that grows shorter with each intense interaction. What truly amazed me however, was Clarke giving arguably his single best performance to date. Kent’s direction here should be applauded, because he brings emotional heft to Jason in ways that no other director has to this point, and we’re rewarded with a third act collapse that has him confronting the demons from his past in ways that is every bit unsettling as it is effective to us the audience. This trio combats some glaring holes in material that make you question the moral fiber of their characters, and are each a delight to watch for how the war has shaped each of them in noticeably different effects.

– Gorgeous cinematography by Franz Lustig. Being a product of Germany himself better prepares Lustig for the style in scope that he delivers in each valued frame, indulging us the audience to immersive establishing shots of breathtaking scenery, as well as intimacy in scenes of passion that glow before our eyes. On the latter, this is something that a movie like “Fifty Shades of Grey” should take notes on, because the love is not only believable, but intense because of the limited window that we are given, which for better or worse, makes us feel a part of the scene with them. On the former, the snowy countryside of Germany feeds much into the circumstances establish by this cold, damp marriage on the rocks, as well as establishing this inescapable feeling of defeat in the air that shapes much of the mentalities from the movie’s various personalities.

– Originality in the war genre. We get a war film once every season, but it’s rare to be presented with the unique opportunity to see the effects from the cause, especially in the case of a once powerful faction like the Axis Powers, which would’ve re-shaped the world. What’s commendable about what “The Aftermath” does, is it explores the shade of grey between good and evil that both sides possessed, and takes valuable time in teaching us that very honorable people like the ones we’ve been believed to have, are also present on enemy lines. It’s not afraid to explore the side of conscience from people we’re not used to delving deep into, and conveys that no one really wins when the smoke of devastation clears.

– Atmosphere put to music. Composer Martin Phipps instills a combination of violin and piano that better triggers the tragedy in the air that binds people of two entirely complex sides together, and it makes for an overall musical score that plays wonderfully synonymous with the highs and lows of this arrangement. I usually don’t go for the classical side of compositions, but when you have a depicted era that calls for it, anything else would alienate these scenes of passion and tragedy with great underscoring on the pulse. Phipps’ work here is also every bit as absorbing as it is adaptive for Rachael’s newly-lit fire that burns for the first time in a long time, presenting us with an audio commentary of sorts for the ball of uncertainty that resides within her, and it’s never obvious or leading, remaining tasteful with its distance between the audience and the film they are engaged in.

NEGATIVES

– Distracted. The biggest problem with the romantic triangle plot is that it often feels like a subplot in a movie that centers around it. There are no fewer than three other on-going narratives taking place simultaneously, and it renders the material that everyone came to see limited in its appeal to further develop the characters and blossoming romance effectively. The additional stories are certainly nothing that I would waste an ample amount of time with, and to be honest, if they were cut all together, it would only create more lasting positives to the attention needed to render the plot more impactful than what we’re left with. Because of such, the thrills of the seduction feel lukewarm, and never provide anything of substance to override the overly-telegraphed movements that we’ve seen in literally any other film about cheating spouses.

– Unlikeable leads. Is it wrong that I related to Jason Clarke’s character the most? I detested Keira Knightley’s character, and no, not because I’m a white male who constantly blames the woman. In this case, the woman is in the wrong, balancing a life of complaining about her husband’s absence to protect the citizens of this country in favor of putting together a rich dinner party for friends, as well as her noticeable prejudice towards German’s that does her no favors in the empathy department. If this wasn’t enough, she cheats on Clarke, and we’re supposed to understand why because of what I previously mentioned and sudden character shifts that come out of nowhere. For instance, Clarke’s character is caring and supportive of German’s who he views as “Victims” in the first act, but then grows to feel inaffectionate when the story requires him to, at the drop of a hat. Skarsgard, not to be outdone, mentions that his daughter is his whole world, yet only spends time with her in the presence of Knightley, and doesn’t have a clue about her going off to join a radical Nazi group plotting to seek revenge. With character’s like these, who needs enema’s?

– Uneven pacing. This is a 104 minute movie, and a majority of the first half of that runtime moves at a snail’s pace of development. When you truly think about it, we as an audience stand in place for roughly the first forty minutes of this film, refusing to plan for future direction’s that pop-up with very little notice. It stays this way until the final forty minutes of the film, when I guess the movie realizes it has built very little inside of this triangle, and decides to get busy with a virtual machine-gun of exposition that almost feels like a different director as a whole is at the controls of. The good news is I was never bored with “The Aftermath”, the bad news is the undercooked dramatic elements never materialized to leave me anywhere near fully invested into what was transpiring.

– Too many cornball cliches. I mentioned earlier that this is typical cab fare for anyone who has seen a Lifetime or Cinemax movie in the last twenty years, but the real tools of tantalizing are so obvious that they craft an inescapable laugh. Let’s go through the list: Shacking up with a hot stranger, each of them has what the other is lacking, husband leaves wife alone with good looking guy for long period of time, film doesn’t condemn or shame cheating couple for their romantic tryst. There’s plenty more, but I’m seriously getting carpel-tunnel typing them out, and if it hasn’t already been proven, this movie goes where plenty of films went before it, leaving nothing in the way of originality or surprises to make it memorable for longer than ten minutes after seeing it.

– It’s a personal nag for me when the movie declares twice that the citizens forced to go against their will to join the Nazi party was worse than the thousands that lost their lives in England attack bombings. No film should ever be about weighing the devastation of two completely different subjects, but “The Aftermath” does this without hesitation, offering a layer of social opinion that doesn’t reflect the film in ways that are complimentary. Just stating the facts is more than enough to lay the impact at the feet of uneducated audiences, but this necessity to compare is something that is insensitive to anyone who was unfortunate enough to be alive during such a dark and scary time for the world’s bleak future.

– No pay-off to the conflict. To say that the ending was underwhelming is being nice. The film’s resolution comes and goes without any long-winded speeches, without any tearful confessions, and without anything that even remotely resembles the impact promised from such a tense and finely edited trailer. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the closing scenes are not only padded for extra time, but also nonsensical when you consider where we started and ended with this pivotal scene, and will lead to audiences either feeling disappointed because of what was teased the whole way, or defeated from the waste of time that everything took to get to this point. What’s more concerning is that the loser in this triangle doesn’t feel remotely affected by it, and it stands as the lone scene where the audience and character’s are on the same page, with neither feeling impacted by where we conclude.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-