The Aftermath ** (2019, Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgård, Jason Clarke, Fionn O’Shea, Kate Phillips, Martin Compston) – Movie Review

The Aftermath (2019) is slow, dull, yawn-inducing retro cinema, with a plodding, predictable story that has one or two good scenes but barely entertains at all. Where is its relevance? Where is its fascination and excitement?

Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgård (from Stockholm, Sweden, playing German) and Jason Clarke (from Queensland, Australia, playing English) are not particularly well cast though they do their best with the three main love triangle roles. But the lack of flesh on the script makes the going hard for them, and there is an amateurish air about the film that will surely find its best chance with a TV audience.

The lovely, grief-stricken Rachael Morgan (Knightley) arrives in the ruins of Hamburg in winter 1946 to reunite with her British colonel husband Lewis (Jason Clarke) in Germany for post-war reconstruction work. Oddly, Lewis decides to share their grand house with its previous owners, a handsome German widower (Skarsgård) and his troubled daughter (Anna Katharina Schimrigk), without consulting Rachael, who is anti-German. But then…

Strong sex is advised on the BBFC health warning in front of the film, getting the cinema audience chattering and excited. Alas, this proved a lie. Flaccid sex appears instead. As expected from the get-go, Knightley abandons her boring husband to get it on, and off, with despised German (Skarsgård), ignoring any principals or beliefs she has along with her knickers. But neither Knightley nor what looks like her body double exude any fire or sex appeal, so it is impossible to believe in what’s going on, let alone be ignited by it, or even involved with it.

Slow though the film is, it feels like pages of the script explaining things properly and to provide nuances, depths of feeling and convincing character developments, have been ditched to get to the nitty gritty and to the final (unconvincing) revelations as soon as possible. It still seems a long 108 minutes.

If Knightley, Skarsgård and Clarke are working against flimsily written roles, Fionn O’Shea, Kate Phillips and Martin Compston are saddled with rotten, undeveloped, one-dimensional roles, defying these good actors. Though admittedly it is hard to conjure up the ruins of Hamburg on a reasonable budget, the production is flimsy too, with rough CGI.

It is based on a novel by Rhidian Brook. It is clearly patterned after Brief Encounter and The Third Man but these are hard footsteps to follow in.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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