"There May Not Be An Outward Show Of Hatred, But It’s There Below The Surface..."
Returning to the cinematic good books after her superb and woefully unappreciated performance in Colette earlier this year, Keira Knightley leaps onto the big screen once again in The Aftermath, a wartime romantic drama which suffers from the strange cinematic disease of having a trailer which not only is much shorter and sweeter than the final body of work, but is entirely much more engaging and interesting. Directed by James Kent and based on Rhidian Brook's 2013 novel of the same name, Knightley's latest sees her take the lead role of Rachael Morgan, a wartime wife who is forced to move to the remains of a now defeated 1946 Hamburg, Germany in order to finally reconvene with her husband, Jason Clarke's (First Man) Colonel Lewis Morgan, after years of separation due to the strenuous wartime effort. After arriving in the wintery and heavily damaged landscapes of the previously Nazi infested enemy territory, Rachael and her husband are quickly moved into the grand and overly modern residence of Alexander Skarsgård's (Big Little Lies) Stefan Lubert, a grieving German architect, resulting in a relationship which begins resentful but soon turns into a spiral of romance and passion.
With acting pedigree this superb and a tantalising trailer which I can admit to it adequately catching my eye, the truth of the matter is that The Aftermath should undoubtedly be a much better and more interesting piece than it actually is. With a pace which would damage the reputation of a snail if comparisons were made, Kent's movie wanders aimlessly through non-existent levels of drama as it attempts to paint a picture of post-war trauma and resentment between the tea-drinking Brits and the Germans, with the central relationship between Lubert and Morgan sort of acting as a lightweight personification as they soon fall in love behind the back of the war obsessed Colonel Morgan. With Knightley doing the best with what she is given from the script, her performance by no means matches the bipolar nature of her strangely annoying character, one who lacks any semblance of charm or likability and one who also contradicts every action and feeling every five seconds to an extent it would have probably been easier if she hadn't made it through the war in the first place. With a couple of half decent set pieces. including a rather well played piano section, and a superb supporting performance from Skarsgård, The Aftermath is no means terrible, it just doesn't seem to have a pulse, and for a movie which verges on the two hour mark, Kent's movie ultimately is blandness personified. Shame
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