The Aftermath, based on the novel by Rhidian Brook - 8.1 out of 10

The Aftermath, based on the novel by Rhidian Brook
8.1 out of 10


If not the film of the year, The Aftermath does not seem to be the unsatisfactory production that some critics - those from The Guardian, Variety among them - seem to have seen.

Evidently, they know better than the undersigned and furthermore, even this viewer has the feeling that something is missing and there are parts that appear implausible.
Keira Knightley has never been my favorite, but in the role of Rachel Morgan, she is more subdued, less prone to the excesses that have made this cinephile dislike quite a few of her previous interpretations.

Jason Clarke is flawless, as usual, in the role of the husband, Jason Clarke, as is Alexander Skarsgard as Stephen Lubert, although for the latter, there are some scenes where the acting might have been a touch too forceful...a long way from pathetic, but one millimeter in that direction.
At the end of World War II, colonel Lewis Morgan is assigned a post in the devastated city of Hamburg.

There is not much that is left standing, but the residence that is offered is fabulous, it belongs to the German architect Stephen Lubert, who is a widower now, father of a teenage daughter, Freda.
Given that her only child, a son, has died in the war, during a Nazi bombing, Rachel Morgan is more than hostile to the architect who is waiting when she arrives to join her husband and refuses to take the hand that he extends.

When the colonel says that he thinks the German and his daughter should be allowed to stay on, instead of vacating the premises to go an live in a camp, his spouse is furious and responds that she had not known what she is getting into.
However, when Freda is playing the piano one day, just as present mistress of the house returns, the British woman likes the performance and states that she could carry on and even sing use the piano every day.

The proud architect retorts:

I thought we each have to keep to our own quarters...

Father and daughter occupy the attic.
There would many moments of confrontation, for instance the scene when guests arrive and Burham, an intelligence officer, mishandles the piano, hitting the notes too hard and making an aggressive landlord ready to attack and punish him.

Freda is understandably unhappy with the situation and more seriously, willing to seek some vengeance for the death of her mother, killed when the Allies bombed Hamburg, using an immense, monstrous quantity of bombs.
She becomes involved with a young man, a member of a terrorist organization, still loyal to the late fuhrer and ready to kill officers of what they see as occupying enemy armies.

But the unlikely romance between the German architect and the wife of an important officer of one of the winning armies is most important in the film.
As they have a dispute and he asks Rachel to throw them out, he kisses her.

After the initial, violent rejection and slap, she does not take any other action.
When he is hurt during a revolt in the city, she takes care of the wound.

As she does that, they start having coitus.
Only it is coitus interruptus.

The husband arrives and they have to postpone their intimacy.
As for the small problems of the movie...one would be the resplendence of the Lubert residence,  more like a chateau.

Yes, he is an architect and his wife came from a rich family, but it was still baffling.
More importantly, the evolution, climax and especially the denouement of the affair appear more than peculiar.

Otherwise, the film does not look as bad as some professionals claim it does.