The Aftermath Parent Guide

When Colonel Lewis Morgan (Jason Clarke), an officer in charge of the British occupation force in post-World War II Germany, is posted to Hamburg, his wife Rachael (Keira Knightley) is allowed to join him. They requisition a house, occupied by widowed architect Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgard) and his daughter Heike (Anna Katharina Schimrigk). Although Rachael, a survivor of the Blitz in London, is initially quite hostile towards the Germans, she soon finds that her feelings for Stefan are changing…

My initial response to The Aftermath is confusion: I’m not sure who its intended audience is. It makes for an awful date night movie, unless you and your date are really into adultery and cities full of rubble. It’s not a strong enough period drama to get the history buffs interested, it’s not steamy enough for the romance crowd, and it’s not well enough produced to be Oscar-bait.

Keira Knightley does her best to save this movie, and her raw emotional scenes are easily the most impressive in the film. Unfortunately, she can’t conjure up any chemistry with the other characters. As her husband, Jason Clarke actually turns in a half decent performance (a massive shock after his wooden turn in Pet Sematary), managing to smile and occasionally emote, and even that miracle isn’t enough to make this movie feel the least bit organic. You’d think that a solid actor like Alexander Skarsgard would be able to generate some on-screen heat with a powerhouse like Keira Knightley, but you’d be wrong. At the end of the day, it feels like the producers wanted to get the hottest, skinniest actors on set to have a steamy sex scene and didn’t care if it made much sense or had any emotional authenticity.

Although the relationships in this film fall flat the production values aren’t bad. The visual design is quite nice if you like that ritzy 1940’s style, and the costumes are very impressive. If it weren’t for the graphic nudity, I’d recommend watching the film on mute or over someone’s shoulder on an airplane. But the sexual content is going to be a big problem for most parents: there are explicit sexual scenes showing a woman’s breasts and those scenes involve an extra-marital relationship.

Within this adulterous context, even good visual design and a top-billed cast are not enough to save this bombed out shell of a romantic drama. The Aftermath is a bleak and emotionally stunted period piece, and the only reason it could possibly be worth the price of admission is to prove that Jason Clarke is able to simulate more than two emotions.