After.Life
Encyclopedia
After.Life is a 2009 American science fiction
horror film
starring Liam Neeson
, Christina Ricci
and Justin Long
, directed by Agnieszka Wójtowicz-Vosloo
from her original screenplay.
), is unhappy with her life. She has a selfish, unloving mother, Beatrice (Celia Weston
), and a boyfriend, Paul Coleman (Justin Long
), who cannot seem to figure her out.
A corpse is in the process of being prepared for a funeral; the man preparing the corpse speaks to it mysteriously, but cheerily. He takes a photo, and the scene fades. Anna is introduced along with Paul, as they finish having sex. She appears unaffected and cold, while he is frustrated with her lack of interest. Later, after school, a young boy she teaches, Jack (Chandler Canterbury
), asks her as she is leaving to the funeral, if he could come along. He says his mother, who had neglected to pick him up from school, would not mind. Confused, she attempts to explain that funerals are a personal occasion. Jack offers that he has never been to a funeral before, but she insists it would be inappropriate. The funeral is revealed to be for her recently deceased music teacher, the corpse from the initial scene. There, Anna encounters the solemn owner of the funeral home, Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson
). One night, Anna meets Paul for dinner, not realizing he is going to propose to her and ask her to move to Chicago with him for a job promotion. Paul begins ambiguously, so Anna assumes the worst. Before Paul has a chance to explain, she panics, thinking he's breaking up with her. After a short argument in the restaurant, Anna storms out and drives off passionately. She has an accident while trying to use her cell phone and drive in the rain, while a mysterious white Van is seen on the road alongside.
Anna wakes up dazed, confused and numb. She finds the morgue director, Eliot, cleaning her wound and telling her she has died. He appears frustrated with her, explaining that all dead people claim to be alive just because they, "breathe and piss and shit." He tells her he has a gift, to assist the dead crossing over; to help them accept their deaths. Later in the funeral home, Eliot is revealed to have a collection of photographs of corpses, it is implied that he helped each to cross over, and speaks to them, implying a level of mental instability. Unwilling to accept her potential death, Anna clings onto life. Eliot injects her regularly with a chemical to "relax the muscles and keep rigor mortis from setting in."
Paul, unable to fully accept her death, asks Eliot if he could see her one last time; however, Eliot cannot, by law, show the body to anyone but family. Paul becomes quite angry, but leaves. Attempting to gain access to her, he pleads with friends in the police, who are sympathetic but unwilling. Anna is revealed not to have been taken to a hospital, rather pronounced dead at the scene and shipped to the funeral home. At an unknown funeral service, Eliot encounters Jack. They speak for a moment, during which Jack admits he had thought the funeral had been for Anna. As she still grapples with the concept of her own death, Anna attempts to escape several times but is unsuccessful; Eliot tells her she must let go of life, she had not really been living anyway. Eventually, she steals Eliot's keys, escapes, and finds a room with a phone, intent on calling Paul for help. Paul is unable to hear her properly and hangs up thinking it's a prank. Anna finally accepts she's dead, when Eliot allows her to look at herself in the mirror. She is horrified to find she looks like a corpse. Peculiarly, she leaves fog on the mirror from her breathing, which Eliot quickly wipes away with a handkerchief before she can see. Outside, Eliot spots Jack, gazing up at Anna. In a scene in his home, Jack's apparently negligent mother is shown to be sitting with a grotesque appearance, staring at the television set. At school he tells Paul he saw Anna, which sends Paul into a rage, hitting the boy. Upon confronting Eliot, Jack is told he has the same gift: the ability to see those between life and death as they really are. Eliot tells the boy that the first person he saw was his mother, alluding to Jack's ambiguously stoic mother. Over time, Paul becomes ever more paranoid as to whether or not Anna really is dead; he becomes suspicious of Eliot.
During the final preparation for the funeral, Anna asks Eliot if she can see herself one last time in the mirror. Eliot holds up a small mirror, but while she stares at herself, she exhales and notices her breath condensing on the glass. Suddenly concerned that Eliot has been lying to her, she begins to believe she has been alive all along. Disappointed that she had come so close to accepting her death yet failed, Eliot grimly injects her one last time with chemicals to make her numb. It is seen that Eliot is in fact injecting Anna with Hydronium Bromide, a fictitious chemical mentioned earlier as being able to induce conditions that mimic death.
In the graveyard while digging Anna's grave with Jack, Eliot explains that there are many corpses walking around with "no life left inside them," and because only they can see them, it is their responsibility to help them into the grave. It is never fully revealed whether this is metaphorical or literal, yet Jack at least appears to take it very literally. A particularly sickly little chick he is instructed to look after as a school assignment, is finally put into a paper box makeshift coffin and buried alive by the boy in order to spare it the pain of living "without truly living" (due to its illness).
After the funeral, Paul drinks heavily, telling Eliot he knew Anna was not dead. Anna is shown awakening to the sound of earth being shoveled onto her coffin. She cries out as she struggles against death, desperately scratching the satin lining of her coffin lid until her fingers are bloody. As she slowly dies of suffocation, Eliot offers that Paul should go to the cemetery and find out whether Anna is actually dead or not, before it's too late. Paul rushes to the cemetery, driving too fast and under the influence of alcohol. There is another ambiguous cut before he is shown to have dug up Anna's grave, to find her alive. They embrace and Anna tells him "she has always loved him." As they hug, Paul is curious about some rather unusual sounds he hears; Anna explains it's the sound of Eliot's gloves and scissors on the table as he prepares Paul's body. Paul sees Anna literally disappear from his embrace, then sees the bright flash of headlights by the cemetery. A moment later, he finds himself in the funeral home with Eliot preparing his body. He says he saw Anna, but Eliot tells him he never made it to the cemetery due to a car accident that killed him. Paul claims just as vehemently as Anna that he is not dead, as they begin preparing his body, protesting that he is alive until the moment Eliot inserts the long introducer rod deeply into Paul's torso, an act which very obviously ends his life.
with Edwin Marshall and James Swisher executive producing for Harbor Light. Scenes were filmed in Lynbrook
, New York
in early December 2008.
Film Festival in Los Angeles on November 7, 2009. Anchor Bay Entertainment
, a division of Overture Films
, has acquired theatrical rights for the U.S. and the U.K. The film received an R-rating and came out on April, 9 2010 in a limited release. Anchor Bay released the DVD and Blu-ray on 3 August 2010.
reports that 29% of 49 critics have given the film a positive review, holding an average score of 4.6/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of notable critics from the media, the film holds an average rating of 12%, based on 17 reviews. According to the website, the film's critical consensus is, "It has an interesting premise and admirable ambitions, but After.Life fails to deliver enough twists or thrills to sustain its creepy atmosphere." Review aggregate Metacritic
has given the film a weighted score of 36/100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews".
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
starring Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
, Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
and Justin Long
Justin Long
Justin Jacob Long is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, Live Free or Die Hard, He's Just Not That into You, Drag Me to Hell, and Youth in Revolt, and his personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a...
, directed by Agnieszka Wójtowicz-Vosloo
Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo , is a Polish-American filmmaker and writer.- Biography :She studied film at Tisch School of the Arts where she graduated summa cum laude in 2003...
from her original screenplay.
Plot
Middle school teacher, Anna Taylor (Christina RicciChristina Ricci
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
), is unhappy with her life. She has a selfish, unloving mother, Beatrice (Celia Weston
Celia Weston
Celia Weston is an American actress of stage, film and television, and a character actress. Professionally, she may be best known for her role as Jolene Hunnicutt on Alice.-Life and career:...
), and a boyfriend, Paul Coleman (Justin Long
Justin Long
Justin Jacob Long is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, Live Free or Die Hard, He's Just Not That into You, Drag Me to Hell, and Youth in Revolt, and his personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a...
), who cannot seem to figure her out.
A corpse is in the process of being prepared for a funeral; the man preparing the corpse speaks to it mysteriously, but cheerily. He takes a photo, and the scene fades. Anna is introduced along with Paul, as they finish having sex. She appears unaffected and cold, while he is frustrated with her lack of interest. Later, after school, a young boy she teaches, Jack (Chandler Canterbury
Chandler Canterbury
Chandler Canterbury is an American child actor.-Life and career:Canterbury was born in Houston, Texas, to Kristine and Russell Canterbury, and resides in Houston. He starred in Summit Entertainment's thriller Knowing for director Alex Proyas , alongside Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne...
), asks her as she is leaving to the funeral, if he could come along. He says his mother, who had neglected to pick him up from school, would not mind. Confused, she attempts to explain that funerals are a personal occasion. Jack offers that he has never been to a funeral before, but she insists it would be inappropriate. The funeral is revealed to be for her recently deceased music teacher, the corpse from the initial scene. There, Anna encounters the solemn owner of the funeral home, Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
). One night, Anna meets Paul for dinner, not realizing he is going to propose to her and ask her to move to Chicago with him for a job promotion. Paul begins ambiguously, so Anna assumes the worst. Before Paul has a chance to explain, she panics, thinking he's breaking up with her. After a short argument in the restaurant, Anna storms out and drives off passionately. She has an accident while trying to use her cell phone and drive in the rain, while a mysterious white Van is seen on the road alongside.
Anna wakes up dazed, confused and numb. She finds the morgue director, Eliot, cleaning her wound and telling her she has died. He appears frustrated with her, explaining that all dead people claim to be alive just because they, "breathe and piss and shit." He tells her he has a gift, to assist the dead crossing over; to help them accept their deaths. Later in the funeral home, Eliot is revealed to have a collection of photographs of corpses, it is implied that he helped each to cross over, and speaks to them, implying a level of mental instability. Unwilling to accept her potential death, Anna clings onto life. Eliot injects her regularly with a chemical to "relax the muscles and keep rigor mortis from setting in."
Paul, unable to fully accept her death, asks Eliot if he could see her one last time; however, Eliot cannot, by law, show the body to anyone but family. Paul becomes quite angry, but leaves. Attempting to gain access to her, he pleads with friends in the police, who are sympathetic but unwilling. Anna is revealed not to have been taken to a hospital, rather pronounced dead at the scene and shipped to the funeral home. At an unknown funeral service, Eliot encounters Jack. They speak for a moment, during which Jack admits he had thought the funeral had been for Anna. As she still grapples with the concept of her own death, Anna attempts to escape several times but is unsuccessful; Eliot tells her she must let go of life, she had not really been living anyway. Eventually, she steals Eliot's keys, escapes, and finds a room with a phone, intent on calling Paul for help. Paul is unable to hear her properly and hangs up thinking it's a prank. Anna finally accepts she's dead, when Eliot allows her to look at herself in the mirror. She is horrified to find she looks like a corpse. Peculiarly, she leaves fog on the mirror from her breathing, which Eliot quickly wipes away with a handkerchief before she can see. Outside, Eliot spots Jack, gazing up at Anna. In a scene in his home, Jack's apparently negligent mother is shown to be sitting with a grotesque appearance, staring at the television set. At school he tells Paul he saw Anna, which sends Paul into a rage, hitting the boy. Upon confronting Eliot, Jack is told he has the same gift: the ability to see those between life and death as they really are. Eliot tells the boy that the first person he saw was his mother, alluding to Jack's ambiguously stoic mother. Over time, Paul becomes ever more paranoid as to whether or not Anna really is dead; he becomes suspicious of Eliot.
During the final preparation for the funeral, Anna asks Eliot if she can see herself one last time in the mirror. Eliot holds up a small mirror, but while she stares at herself, she exhales and notices her breath condensing on the glass. Suddenly concerned that Eliot has been lying to her, she begins to believe she has been alive all along. Disappointed that she had come so close to accepting her death yet failed, Eliot grimly injects her one last time with chemicals to make her numb. It is seen that Eliot is in fact injecting Anna with Hydronium Bromide, a fictitious chemical mentioned earlier as being able to induce conditions that mimic death.
In the graveyard while digging Anna's grave with Jack, Eliot explains that there are many corpses walking around with "no life left inside them," and because only they can see them, it is their responsibility to help them into the grave. It is never fully revealed whether this is metaphorical or literal, yet Jack at least appears to take it very literally. A particularly sickly little chick he is instructed to look after as a school assignment, is finally put into a paper box makeshift coffin and buried alive by the boy in order to spare it the pain of living "without truly living" (due to its illness).
After the funeral, Paul drinks heavily, telling Eliot he knew Anna was not dead. Anna is shown awakening to the sound of earth being shoveled onto her coffin. She cries out as she struggles against death, desperately scratching the satin lining of her coffin lid until her fingers are bloody. As she slowly dies of suffocation, Eliot offers that Paul should go to the cemetery and find out whether Anna is actually dead or not, before it's too late. Paul rushes to the cemetery, driving too fast and under the influence of alcohol. There is another ambiguous cut before he is shown to have dug up Anna's grave, to find her alive. They embrace and Anna tells him "she has always loved him." As they hug, Paul is curious about some rather unusual sounds he hears; Anna explains it's the sound of Eliot's gloves and scissors on the table as he prepares Paul's body. Paul sees Anna literally disappear from his embrace, then sees the bright flash of headlights by the cemetery. A moment later, he finds himself in the funeral home with Eliot preparing his body. He says he saw Anna, but Eliot tells him he never made it to the cemetery due to a car accident that killed him. Paul claims just as vehemently as Anna that he is not dead, as they begin preparing his body, protesting that he is alive until the moment Eliot inserts the long introducer rod deeply into Paul's torso, an act which very obviously ends his life.
Cast
- Christina RicciChristina RicciChristina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values , and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper...
as Anna Taylor - Liam NeesonLiam NeesonLiam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
as Eliot Deacon - Justin LongJustin LongJustin Jacob Long is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Galaxy Quest, Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, Live Free or Die Hard, He's Just Not That into You, Drag Me to Hell, and Youth in Revolt, and his personification of a Mac in Apple's "Get a...
as Paul Coleman - Celia WestonCelia WestonCelia Weston is an American actress of stage, film and television, and a character actress. Professionally, she may be best known for her role as Jolene Hunnicutt on Alice.-Life and career:...
as Beatrice Taylor - Chandler CanterburyChandler CanterburyChandler Canterbury is an American child actor.-Life and career:Canterbury was born in Houston, Texas, to Kristine and Russell Canterbury, and resides in Houston. He starred in Summit Entertainment's thriller Knowing for director Alex Proyas , alongside Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne...
as Jack
Production
After.Life completed filming in New York at the end of December 2008 with Bill Perkins and Celine Rattray as producers. Galt Niederhoffer and Pam Hirsch are executive producing for Plum PicturesPlum Pictures
Plum Pictures was founded in 2003 by Galt Niederhoffer, Celine Rattray and Daniela Taplin Lundberg. Based in downtown Manhattan, the company produces three to four films a year, with a focus on both studio and independent films...
with Edwin Marshall and James Swisher executive producing for Harbor Light. Scenes were filmed in Lynbrook
Lynbrook, New York
Lynbrook is a village in Nassau County, New York, USA. The population was 19,427 at the 2010 census. The Village of Lynbrook is inside the Town of Hempstead. The Village of Lynbrook's current mayor is William Hendrick....
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in early December 2008.
Release
After.Life premiered at the AFIAmerican Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Film Festival in Los Angeles on November 7, 2009. Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
, a division of Overture Films
Overture Films
Overture Films, LLC is an American film production and distribution company. It is a subsidiary of Liberty Media ....
, has acquired theatrical rights for the U.S. and the U.K. The film received an R-rating and came out on April, 9 2010 in a limited release. Anchor Bay released the DVD and Blu-ray on 3 August 2010.
Critical reception
After.Life has received negative reviews. Review aggregate Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 29% of 49 critics have given the film a positive review, holding an average score of 4.6/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of notable critics from the media, the film holds an average rating of 12%, based on 17 reviews. According to the website, the film's critical consensus is, "It has an interesting premise and admirable ambitions, but After.Life fails to deliver enough twists or thrills to sustain its creepy atmosphere." Review aggregate Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
has given the film a weighted score of 36/100, based on 21 reviews, indicating "Generally unfavorable reviews".