ksf-2
Thar be spoilers down below -The story opens with Mom (Deneuve) helping her son Mathieu and his buddy (Franck, played by Thomas Dumerchez) dress up in drag, as they go off to a party. Then tragedy strikes, the son is killed, and this is where Mom starts to lose it. The sister (Elodie Bouchez) blames Franck for the death of her brother, so she can't stand to have him around. Pretty good story of a mother who means well, but is becoming OCD over losing her son. She wants to spend more and more time with his friend(s), but they all rebuff her. The one part that seemed a little unbelieve-able was at the cemetery... a bulldozer starts pushing dirt in while mother is still standing there... a little hard to believe that they could be so thoughtless to do that while she was standing right there. At one point, Mom & Franck go to hear a rock band... would have been fun to know who that band was. They DO show the songs and artists at the end of the film, but when I saw it on sundance channel, it was too crunched up to read clearly. Hopefully someone with HD can enter the songs/artists into IMDb. Nice photography. Interesting story of a woman who can't quite let go of her son, or his friends. Better than I thought it would be after reading some of the comments here. Directed by Gaël Morel, who also wrote and directed Full Speed, ten years earlier.
theo-71
As the only review of Après Lui at the moment is rather a negative one, I feel the need to say that this film is an intensive journey through the pain of human loss and the desperate search to regain a grip on life. Nobody understands Camille, which leads to sad and often lonely moments. This film is beautifully written and directed. Gaël Morel is a fine director who deserves a wide audience for his work. His leading actress Catherine Deneuve is impressive, but this is also the case with promising young actors as Dumerchez (who also played the lead in Morel's Le Clan) and Jolivet. On the soundtrack Beth Gibbons with the song Mysteries which brings back happy memories for someone who isn't there anymore. An English subtitled DVD is now available in Australia.
Felix-28
to comment on this film. It received a mainstream release in Australia, although it was hardly a raging success. The biggest thing about it was that Catherine Deneuve was here for the premiere.Anyway, it's not much of a film. The user rating is about 5.5, and that's not far wrong. Anybody reading this probably knows the setup, but for those who don't it's about a woman whose son is killed in a car accident. The car was driven by his best friend. Although the woman's ex-husband and daughter regard the other boy as almost a murderer, the mother doesn't, and forms a relationship with him. (Not a sexual relationship.) That setup itself makes you think.The problem is that it didn't make the makers think hard enough. The film goes nowhere. Catherine Deneuve as the mother does reasonably well with a difficult part, and she's the only one I was interested in.It's not bad, it's just not really worth bothering with.
