After Love (2020)

After Love (2020)

A beautifully powerful and quietly moving film about things left unspoken

The Very Best

8.8

Movie

United Kingdom
Arabic, English, French
Drama
2020
ALEEM KHAN
Adam Karim, Elijah Braik, Jeff Mirza
89 min

What it's about

Set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, Mary Hussain suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just twenty-one miles across the English Channel in Calais.

The take

After Love is a beautifully powerful and quietly moving outing by emerging British filmmaker Aleem Khan. It follows Mary (Joanna Scanlan), a white Muslim convert who discovers a life-changing secret her husband has managed to keep from her all these years.

Without spoiling anything, I will say that After Love is charged with the sort of deep-seated emotion we sometimes don’t know how to express. It’s also a powerful reminder that there’s no one way to love or grieve or celebrate the people around us; sometimes, there’s just feeling. And Scanlan does a wonderful job of restraining then conveying all of that in devastating and commanding moments throughout the film, a feat that earned her the much-deserved best actress award at the 2021 BAFTAs. 

Comments

Add a comment

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

The Guilty (2018)

A minimalist, razor-sharp thriller that will have you gasping for air.

9.0

Falling in Love Like in Movies (2023)

A contemplative Indonesian romance film that rewrites and re-examines the genre’s conventions

8.4

Betty Blue (1986)

Artistic frustration is only temporarily sated by love in this erotic, supposedly psychological, drama

6.5

Cold War (2018)

A quiet Polish masterpiece with ravishing music and dazzling visuals

9.2

Mommy (2014)

Aiming straight for the heart while punching you in the guts, Mommy is a crazy chamber piece about a widowed mother and her next-door neighbor bringing up a savage teenager

9.6

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

A romance from France like no other

8.2

Camille Claudel (1988)

Isabelle Adjani descends into madness in this stirring biopic of the titular genius sculptor that died in obscurity

7.0

The African Doctor (2016)

A feel-good story of one French village’s first African family

7.2

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Martin Scorsese grapples with harrowing history and the limits of storytelling in this monumental masterpiece

8.2

Uncle Frank (2020)

An easy road-trip movie with an abundance of heart

7.9

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw logo

© 2024 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.