Love After Love

Two minor quibbles: Why do people in these kinds of character study films always have glamorous jobs? And the sheer number of sex scenes detracts from the film. Most people Andie MacDowell's age don't look anything like Andie MacDowell. Otherwise, well done.

Love After Love should continue the prepositional phrase forever because the major players in this finely wrought drama are forever looking for love or grieving about it. Matriarch Suzanne (Andie MacDowell) loses her husband and wanders around her two sons almost in a fog of grief but maybe more in puzzlement about how they are working out their fates without her influence.

They are flawed adults, like womanizing son, Nicholas (Chris O'Dowd), who has a conflicted intimacy with his mother but more with himself as he wanders among showing the greatest puppy eyes in cinema. He is an emblem of the players who never seem at peace with their current or future partners.

This episodic, fragmented story, whose jumping back and forth in time is occasionally disorienting, in its unsympathetic way, reveals the puzzle-like lives of sentient beings who witness death, go through its mourning rituals, and search for love, carnal and otherwise, in, it would seem, a hedge against oblivion.

Co-writer/director Russell Harbaugh, in a promising debut, navigates smoothly in rough affective waters, saving the best scenes by interspersing them among some fairly quotidian events that play naturally to the death motif. When alcoholic son, Chris (James Adomian), does a standup about the difficulty of Jesus competing with his Father, the metaphor is not lost but not heavy-handed either. Both sons are struggling to compete with dad and themselves.

Love After Love is a satisfying drama about all of us in families we know have dysfunctional working parts but who are on the greatest quest of all for love after love, after love, after love, forever.

As many reviewers have noted , this movie jumps from one time sequence to another and leaves it up to the viewer to basically figure it out. I'm not a big fan of this style of first time director Russell Harbaugh, and with the film's many flawed and unlikable characters, I'm surprised I'm not giving this a 1 or a 2 rating as well.

However, I did find some strong acting here led by the seemingly ageless Andie MacDowell, and some dramatic tension among this dysfunctional family which I found interesting enough to stay with the movie, although part of me wanted to indeed bail.

Overall, a mixed bag for me here, but I can see how many will be turned off by some of the unlikable characters and their crappy actions.

The movie purports to be about grief. What we see is all the dysfunction expressed as projected rage, alcoholism, and all the function as "getting on with it." What we don't see is how the "grief" has transformed these people. We never get to see them transform. For all we know we may not be seeing just grief but personalities that have always been that way. It ain't pretty for the son's who dissolve into childishness, and it's hopeful for the widow who hews to maturity. It certainly does not paint a nice picture of liberal elitists.

Watched this yesterday and came away with questions, the biggest of which was why did I ever watch it in the first place. Filmed like a reality show, meandering here and there and could have only been worse if a hand-held camera had been used. Definitely did not like the director's technique or style. Never found out what the father/husband's malady was, found it hard to determine who Nicholas' latest sex partner was, found the segue from wake to Nicholas' wedding engagement announcement dinner was confusing. The only good thing I can say about this film is Chris O'Dowd's well acted performance as the stupid-beyond-words and for me, loathsome Nicholas. He did such a good job that I doubt I could ever like him in any future character portrayals.