Más allá de la muerte

"After.Life" is a really intense thriller that will keep you in the dark, feeding you just small pieces to keep you guessing and speculating. And that worked so well.

The story told in "After.Life" is really riveting and compelling. It is the type of story that will keep you in suspense and wanting to see what happens next. The plot is Anna Taylor (played by Christina Ricci) is in a car accident and wakes up on a mortuary slab, where she is attended to by Eliot Deacon (played by Liam Neeson). And the story lets you guessing if she really is dead or alive, and whether it is all a ruse set up by Deacon. I am not going to reveal any more of the story, except that it was fantastic.

I like movies that keep you in the dark and have you grasping at clues, trying to figure out what really is happening. And "After.Life" really takes you on a thrill ride where you don't know what is true or false.

The cast was really good and they did good jobs with their roles. Especially Liam Neeson, in the role of the mortician Eliot Deacon. He was right on the money with this performance. I read that they had initially casted Alfred Molina for this part, and I think he would have done an equally good job (as he has been seen in a mortician role before). And also Christina Ricci was doing a good job with her role as Anna Taylor. And it is good to see that Justin Long is finally shedding that teenage role of his and stepping up into the bigger league of acting.

If you like thrillers, then "After.Life" is definitely worth checking out. The story blew me away and took me completely off guard. I hadn't expected it to be anything like this.

A funeral director appears to have the gift of speaking to dead, and help with their passing to the either side. However, his latest work is a young female school teacher, but is she really dead or is he fulfilling a sick fantasy.

Director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Voslo's After-life is intriguing, thought provoking and original throughout. The stark style of filming is reminiscent of Body to Body (2003) aka "Corps à corps".

While most of film centres around the character of Anna Taylor it is a wise casting choice by Matthew Lessall as beautiful Christina Ricci gives an emotional performance as a girl who's is not sure if she is dead or alive. Although, Ricci is on the mortuary slab and semi-nude for most part of the film, comparably to Anna Falchi in Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), to Wojtowicz-Voslo's credit it's never in an explicit or over sexualized presentation.

Liam Neeson is convincing as the mortician Eliot Deacon in a subtle performance where he communicates with the dead. He's creepy and cold, although not given a back story, his character has many layers. The tension between Neeson and Ricci is note-worthy and create some great moments.

Die Hard 4 star Justin Long is average as Ricci's fiancée, as he doesn't have the convincing weight of the other players. However, Young Chandler Canterbury as the little boy Jack is memorable. The supporting cast are a mix of familiar face's including Josh Charles and Shuler Hensley and the other officers.

Direction, lighting and music create an eerie atmosphere for this effective thriller mystery. There's horror too in the way of Anna Taylor's visions and Deacon working on the deceased prepping their bodies.

Overall, simmering entertainment with a closing act to ponder over.

After a horrific car accident, Anna (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find the local funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) preparing her body for her funeral. Confused, terrified and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesn't believe she's dead, despite the funeral director's reassurances that she is merely in transition to the afterlife. Eliot convinces her he has the ability to communicate with the dead and is the only one who can help her. Trapped inside the funeral home, with nobody to turn to except Eliot, Anna is forced to face her deepest fears and accept her own death. But Anna's grief-stricken boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) still can't shake the nagging suspicion that Eliot isn't what he appears to be. Paul desperately tries to convince the local Police Chief (Josh Charles) that Anna's alive. But the more he investigates her death, the more they question his sanity. As the funeral nears, Paul gets closer to unlocking the disturbing truth, but it could be too late; Anna may have already begun to cross over the other side.

After Life is a clever psychological thriller with a very creepy and mysterious atmosphere. The concept behind the story is very cool but the execution is definitely what made the film. Is Anna alive or is she dead? That is the big question of After Life and the film goes back and forth delivering several clues, some subtle, some not so much. And even though the film tries to be ambiguous, by the end, it's pretty clear what happened. Still, it will drive you crazy, in a good way of course. The film also poses some interesting questions regarding the nature of life forcing the viewer to reflect on his own existence.

Liam Neeson did a good job and Christina Ricci was exceptional in her role. Justin Long however, was largely disappointing. Overall, it's nothing outstanding but definitely a very entertaining flick and the director was able to put a different spin on a often used concept.

6.5/10

The school teacher Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) is a troubled woman that uses many pills along the day and is incapable to love due to the creation of her dysfunctional mother. When her boyfriend Paul Coleman (Justin Long) is promoted but needs to move to Chicago, he invites her to a fancy dinner to propose her. However Anna does not listen to him and believes he wants to quit their relationship, leaving the restaurant totally disturbed and upset. She has a car accident and awakes in a funeral home, where the director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) is preparing her body for the funeral service. Anna tells him that she is not dead, but Eliot shows her death certificate and explains that he has the gift of listening to the dead. Along the days and the nights, Anna faces her fears and Eliot slowly tries to convince her to accept her death. But Anna does not believe that she had died and tries to communicate with Paul. Is she really dead or alive?

"After.Live" is a terrific bleak tale and one of the best horror movies that I have recently seen. The ambiguous story provided leads to the viewer to decide whether Anna Taylor is dead or alive but the conclusion is actually open to interpretation. Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci totally or partially naked most of the time have top-notch performances, supported by an intelligent and original screenplay, tight direction and awesome music score. The atmosphere is melancholic, and the dark colors are contrasted by the red of blood, hair dye and dress. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

AFTER.LIFE (yes, that is a dot between the two words suggesting this may be a video game...or blog, or something created in cyberspace) takes a long shot; can a one-line story keep an audience's attention for over 103 minutes? Not having noticed whether this played in theaters or is one of the direct to DVD films, that question is tough to answer. The director and writer Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (writing in tandem with Paul Vosloo and Jakub Korolczuk) asks us to suspend belief and muse about the idea that there is a time between 'death' and the actual burial (or other means of final interment/disposal) when the spirit may struggle with the idea of life ending. It is an interesting hiatus to study and fortunately a cast was selected to portray the characters involved in this internet-like game that makes it watchable.

Schoolteacher Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) and Paul Coleman (Justin Long) are in a rocky relationship: they could be headed toward marriage but Anna has trust issues that prevent her from committing to same. In a rage she leaves the frustrated Coleman, subsequently is killed in a car accident, and is taken to a mortuary where mortician Elliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) begins preparing her body for the funeral. Anna is unable to move anything but her mouth and denies that she is dead, a situation Deacon encounters with most every dead body he prepares for burial. And this is where the conundrum begins: is Anna dead or is she alive, kept prisoner by Deacon? Anna's hateful mother (Celia Watson) visits her daughter's corpse and has few kind words to say. Paul is devastated, comforted by his colleague Tom (Josh Charles), that Anna is dead and visits the mortuary to see the body but is refused admittance by Deacon. One of Anna's young students Jack (Chandler Canterbury) seems to have a special affinity for the dead and spies on the mortuary where he sees Anna standing in a window. Anna and Deacon have long talks about the after.life - that time when the soul is preparing to leave the corporal body - and Deacon continues to prepare Anna for her funeral. As she is buried the facts of the story straighten out a bit, but to reveal those facts would ruin what little suspense there is in this film.

Though the moody atmosphere is well captured by both the director of photography Anastas N. Michos and the musical score by Paul Haslinger, and the presence of Liam Neeson who plays his role very straight and Christina Ricci who plays her role almost entirely in the nude, give the story the requisite creepy effect. Yes, it is corny in many ways, but at least it is a bit different from the formula movies that keep churning out of Hollywood.

Grady Harp