After Everything

Never heard of this movie before watching it, but when I saw Lip from Shameless in it I thought, why not give it a shot. Now, after watching it I find myself feeling pretty ambivalent to something I honestly wish I would've liked more. After Everything is a really heartfelt story of a man who learns he's got cancer, asks a woman out and then proceeds through a relationship built on the foundations of all this turmoil and the eventually aftermath of all that. As someone who's always wanted a '10 years later' look at a lot of these fairy tale, action movie, hollywood romances born out of outrageous circumstance and knowing they can't possibly work... Ariel and the Prince? Come on, there is no way they reach a ten year anniversary. She's a fish! They'll be sick of each other in a two years tops. Anyhow, my issues with movie romances aside, I love a movie that legitimately tries to explore these issues.

Problem is, this feels a little too generic, a little too unpolished and, as much as I'd love to feel different, I want the writing and the acting cranked up a level. As it stands, it just fails to make me really feel some of these big emotional moments and I feel like, in different hands, this could have been devastatingly effective. Instead, we get a movie I can say I really appreciate for now but I don't think I'm going to remember it for very long. It just doesn't do enough to separate itself from the pack and make itself remarkable.

Still, if you're looking for, honestly kind of a downer movie, this isn't an awful one. I love some of the ideas and the exploration of these relationships, it's just lacking in the script and the acting. If it's on, check it out, or stream it from somewhere but I wouldn't pay anything for this.

How perfect was the first half going ... but the ending brother is very weird ...

Having been subjected to Nicholas Sparks's romantic sludge for years, I am pleased with a romantic drama that feels real and painful without hearts, flowers, or bottle messages. The brilliance of After Everything (fka Shotgun) is that writer/directors Hannah Marks and Joey Power keep sentimentality at bay while directing two fine actors, whose chemistry is astonishingly believable. It's the year's best romance.

Elliot (Jeremy Allen White), reminding me of Dustin Hoffman's Graduate look and persona, gets a life-defining diagnosis while meeting the girl of his dreams, Mia (Maika Monroe). Despite his bleak prognosis, they fall in love and marry. Of course, already the situation is unreal, but the characters are so sincerely in love that we become complicit in their seemingly skewered decision.

However, the film is dedicated to showing authentic love that sacrifices certainty for the abstract promise of everlasting love. And they love in a fetchingly warm connection that makes us forget he seems doomed to early death.

I'm not an overly-sentimental type, but After Everything is close to my perfect screen romance. It's real and touching without the dross that usually accompanies this type of drama. A date night-you bet!

This movie gives a simplified, candid, and episodic view of a relationship between two New Yorkers, one of whom is fighting a rare form of cancer. What I really liked is that the two main actors played it straight. There were no cheap jokes or exaggerated situations- it felt like a true depiction of how a fast relationship takes its course, showing both the triumphs and pitfalls.

Now I wasn't moved by this movie and it didn't cause me to think deeply about my life, but this was a refreshing film compared to a lot of works I've seen lately. The ending was cheap and abrupt, yet overall this was a pleasant picture.

This movie threw all the cliches about romantic comedy/drama films out the bathroom window and started working on its own path and the result was a beautifully crafted piece of art. This is how good movies are done and this (aside from the Notebook) is the only romance movie I'd gladly watch a second time!