Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) is a school teacher struggling with depression and a poor self-image. She is in a relationship with Paul Coleman (Justin Long), a lawyer who is strongly in love with her but frustrated that she is always keeping him at a distance. When he gets a job offer in another city he is determined to propose to her over dinner but she mistakes the situation as him wanting to leave her instead. She drives off angrily and ends up in a car accident. She wakes up in the funeral home of Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson), a mortician who tells her that she is dead and that he has a gift of helping the recently deceased accept their demise and move on to the next life.
The central premise is revealed pretty early on in this film. So is the mystery. We see Eliot preparing an elderly body for burial, a body that appears to have not died yet. This early scene sews doubt in our minds as to whether Eliot is telling the truth later when he says he is the only one who can hear and communicate with those who are brought to him for burial. This is further cast into doubt when the brother of one of the police officers in town is brought in and shows no signs of communicating with Eliot at all. We are conditioned to doubt Anna is really dead, however the film gives us plenty of proofs that she actually is. Later, it will give us strong evidence in the opposite direction as if Agnieszka wants us to believe fervently one way, then suddenly change our minds just as fervently. That the film doesn’t give us concrete evidence one way or the other is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it can be frustrating.
The film has definite signs of being a film student’s first foray into professional filmmaking. Symbolism looms large throughout it. For instance the color red is predominant, and not just an ordinary red but a bright, almost vulgar red. Anna wears a red slip underneath her clothes the night she dies. Her nose bleeds bright red in the shower. She dies her hair red right before her fateful accident. Then there’s the use of mirrors. When Eliot shows Anna her reflection in the mirror that reflection looks wasted away like a corpse. That reflection is meant to show Anna that she truly is dead, yet, briefly her breath steams the glass showing that the opposite is the case. Eliot wipes it away before it can be seen but this moment will be repeated later and he will not be able to conceal it a second time.
Much of the film revolves around Christina Ricci playing off Liam Neeson. This is where the film really shines. Neeson is his ever dependable self, playing the same type of cool and distant character he always seems to play and it really works here. While Ricci is panicking and insisting she must still be alive, Neeson’s calm demeanor holds it all together. We rarely see him lose his cool. It keeps the mystery alive somewhat even if we have made up our minds early which way the mystery falls. Ricci sells a vast array of emotions here. We are introduced to her in the arms of her lover, emotionless and unfeeling during what should be the heat of passion. We feel her detachment from Paul and his frustration with not being able to break through it. Later, as she tries to hold on to a life that she was not living to its fullest, and then is unable to take the steps to go back to, we buy it. This could have been another generic depression performance here, but Ricci delivers something more than that.
The film gives us ample reason to believe why Anna is the way she is, too. Her mother (Celia Weston) is overbearing and bitter, quick to attack Paul over her daughter’s accident. Even in death, she wants control over her daughter, telling Eliot to re-dye her daughter’s hair back to the original color rather than keep it the way Anna had wanted it. This shows us the type of domineering mother she was and why Anna has such a poor self-image. It’s a bit too much at times but does fill in some gaps where other films would have left it as unexplained.
After.Life struggles in its focus. This is primarily in the mystery it presents us. Sure, at the end of the day an argument can be made that she was still alive or that she was really dead. Agnieszka gives us ample evidence in either direction, then tries to deflect that evidence to confuse us. One of these instances involves a student of Anna’s, Jack (Chandler Canterbury), who actually sees her standing in the window of the funeral home after she is supposedly dead. Eliot will tell Jack that he, too, has the power to see and speak to the dead, but is that true or just subterfuge? Later we will see Jack burying a baby chick who, to us at least, appears to be definitely alive. All of this obfuscation makes the mystery a tad too frustrating in the end, deflection for confusion’s sake only.
While the final destination here comes across a bit too frustrating, the journey to get there is interesting enough to merit the watch. There are some strong performances to be found throughout and the images can be striking at times. It plays as straight horror more than suspense/thriller, though, and leans too heavily on conflicting narratives. Still, it’s a better than average film for its type and never gets boring. Ricci is completely convincing in her myriad of emotions, showing what the actress can do when she’s connecting with the material. It’s far from perfect, but it’s entertaining and for this genre, sometimes that’s all it needs to be.
Release Date: November 7, 2009
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson and Justin Long
Directed By: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
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