After Love

June 14, 2022Members’ Choice8:30pm

Written and directed by debutant Aleem Khan, After Love is essentially a chamber piece about grief that has been expanded out across boundaries both literal and figurative. The English Channel, which has an alternate identity as La Manche, becomes a symbol of uncertainty and transition as Mary, played by Joanna Scanlan, comes to terms not only with the premature death of her husband but the discovery that he had a parallel life in France.

Nathalie Richard and Talid Ariss provide excellent support as a mother and son also prone to self-deception and furtiveness, but it is Scanlan’s nuanced performance that really holds you.

“This inventive domestic drama investigates a supposedly good marriage and is therefore bound to be compared to Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years. I prefer to see it as the flip-side of Rose Glass’s horror masterpiece, Saint Maud. In fact, if you were looking to compare and contrast non-judge-y takes on pious proles, After Love and Saint Maud would make a fabulous double bill.” Charlotte O’Sullivan, Evening Standard”

“In Scanlan’s features we see grief and humiliation twisted into possessiveness, vengefulness and misplaced compassion, as she plays simultaneously the wronged wife and a cuckoo in somebody else’s nest.” Pamela Hutchinson, BFI


Film Information
Release year: 2020
Running time:   89 mins
Directed by: Aleem Khan
Language: English
Country: UK
Classification:
Genre: Drama
Starring: Joanna Scanlan,
Nathalie Richard,
Talid Ariss
Awards: BAFTA:
Best Actress (Joanna Scanlan);
BIFA:
Best Director,
Best Actress,
Best Supporting Actor,
Best Screenplay,
Best British Independent Film,
Best Debut Director
More info:

IMDb
Rotten Tomatoes
WFC Audience Score:  88%

View our 347 screenings by season, country, language and other dimensions.


Sign up for the Wimbledon Film Club mailing list and find out about our upcoming screenings at the Curzon in Wimbledon.

All fields are required