Afterschool

source: Afterschool

AFTERSCHOOL is certainly not the kind of movie which would appeal to most people, yet this film very aptly portrays "the unease of a troubled state of mind". Slow and deliberate pacing epitomizes the depression and sense of dread of the student body. At first glance, it would appear that these young people have it all; intelligence, money, and social standing, yet with all these positive attributes, their sophisticated environment only highlights and magnifies the emptiness of their lives. High School is usually portrayed as a happy time, yet in this case, nothing could be farther from the truth. A bit of a re-write might have tightened up the storyline, yet overall, AFTERSCHOOL is most definitely worth a look. Gus Van Sant's, ELEPHANT is somewhat similar in that it also tries to convey a sort of 'dreamy malevolence'.

I was excited to see this film after discovering the director in a group interview he did with other filmmakers. I think reading his interviews before seeing the film helped set the tone for me as well. Overall I think it is a brilliant movie. It screamed Kubrick tones to me throughout, which I enjoyed. It was not overbearing in that aspect, just tasteful shots that were long and clever that hearken all my favorite Kubrick moments. Now for the story, I think once you see the end it feels like a great story. I felt on edge wondering if the main character was developing how I thought he was. Little aspects slip here and there that made me think there would be no pay off, but it felt solid all together. I think this filmmaker should have an interesting career ahead of him. I am excited to see his next feature after reading the premise.

I really can say I don't think I liked this. But it's not necessarily for the same reasons some are giving for similar dislike. I didn't like it because, despite the mind-numbingly slow pacing, I still sat through it until the end. I went to film school (legit), and I hate films that are well aware they're of that " independent" variety. Unfortunately, you can't just use that moniker and expect everyone to forgive your film for being pretentious or boring. Yes, this movie had several boring scenes. Unnecessarily boring. Don't try to find art, it's boring. I don't feel that long, single shots with heads cut out of the picture to be edgy or unique. I find it as forced art. Trying to show you have a way of breaking from traditional cinematography. I got news...it doesn't always work. This film is evidence. The acting was pretty good, so i will say the characters really played their parts well. I felt what Rob was feeling because he's talented and did what he could with his part. Same with some of the others. That being said, I think the director had too many things he wanted to squeeze into one film. Perhaps this would've been better as a limited series. You can't give us a compelling plot only to make us crave the real aftermath we believed we were entitled to. The director makes us wait and gives us a tiny little steak at the end as a final, disappointing meal. There was a lot that could've done to make this film better. Develop characters better. We get it....teens, depression, isolation, discovery...bla bla bla. But not all are pathetic, confused worms. Run-time...if you're not planning on delivering some kind of denouement, then go for a quicker Hollywood ending so we don't sit up late writing reviews on how we wasted time. Stick with one story. Don't try to start sublots and abandon them because you can't remember where you're going. You're the storyteller. You're the one who takes us on the journey. You're all wondering why I gave it a 6? I'm not sure....can't decide.

Just a warning to those who are disturbed by seeing clips of actual murder, actual abuse against women and a bunch of other violent and graphic imagery. All of this appears in the first few minutes of the movie when the Ezra Miller character is surfing videos on the internet mostly graphic violence including real clips of murder and then lands on some * showing a young woman being intentionally and extensively humiliated and then choked in what is obviously a more than she bargained for aspect of the clip which ends with the actual sex act. There is other fictionalized stuff that is disturbing later on but the first few minutes alone would make this movie unwatchable to most people. This unfortunately was on my cable company's on-demand menu without any warnings as to its extremely disturbing content.

I'll try to make this short and sweet. The movie is slow and boring, but worst of all - it's irritating. The director tries to get cute with the camera and it just doesn't work - you spend most of the movie just trying to figure out who is saying what. (I've seen movies with innovative camera work - this is not one of them.) The plot is murky...there's no resolution to the story. SPOILER: you think the main character maybe killed one of the girls by suffocating her with a hand over her mouth, but you can't really be sure. SPOILER: if you pay attention to the dialog, you could even think his roommate may have killed them both inadvertently by trying to "drug" them for ulterior motives (early in the film, the main character suggests to his roommate - the drug dealer - that he could drug them; further support for this theory is: since his roommate was selling drugs all over the school...how come the 2 girls are the only ones who died? Why would the doses the girls bought contain rat poisoning, but other doses he sold did not?) - but again, you just can't really tell if that is what happened. 'Sorry - but I really dislike a movie where you basically know less about what happened in it AFTER you've watched it. I also have to agree with the reviewers here who said the memorial video created by the main character was NOT insightful and honest, but just inappropriate and plain stupid (now that I think about it - it was a lot like the movie it's a part of). Finally, I just want to point out an error in another review here, where the reviewer refers to a scene with students lining up and taking pills by saying "...all the students are now given daily doses of pills..." suggesting that the students were all given drugs daily as a reaction to the drug overdose deaths. In the first place, had the reviewer paid a bit more attention: there is an almost identical scene earlier in the movie - well BEFORE the girls die. Secondly, it's a common practice in most boarding schools that students are not allowed to keep and take their own prescription drugs...they have to go to the school clinic at the proper times to receive them. This prevents abuse and/or selling of prescription drugs, while helping to lower school liability in case a student is not taking their prescribed drugs when they're supposed to. That's what that scene (and the earlier similar scene) was about - NOT a repressive school system forcing students to take drugs for their own good! I guess I can't blame that reviewer for missing that - this movie is very easy to misunderstand. Very little of it is very clear.

Ezra Miller is great actor in addition to have grown up to be pretty hot. Anyway, in Afterschool, Miller is a nobody kid at a prep school who accidentally videotapes two popular girls die overdosing on tainted cocaine. As the school goes into damage control trying to shake out all the drugs, Miller starts to act erratically believing he is under surveillance. Surveillance, public image and acts of watching are huge themes in movie. Apparently a lot of people don't care for the slow pace of the story and static camera scenes. I could write a book on why every shot matters. Not for everybody's taste but film students and cinephiles will love it. I think it's brilliant.

I am going to take you to "Afterschool"!!! OK, maybe after reading my pun-infested movie review, you might think of it more as puntention (I mean detention), and think that I have no class. But please just swim with these school of puns for a little while. "Afterschool" is a dark, quirky and semi-interesting film about an isolated prep-school teen named Rob who witnesses fatal drug overdoses of preppie female twins while working on an audio/visual school club project. Therefore, he is able to gather video footage of the twins' deaths. Rob is traumatized from the experience, and has difficulty coping with it. Rob's roommate is Dave, a cocky & arrogant bully who manipulates Rob on a daily basis and may or may not had a hand in the cause of the twin overdoses. Mr. Burke is the school director who is more concerned about the image of the school and its funders then of the ordeals and stress that teenagers go through. Amy is Rob's student partner in the audio-visual club and this Amy might be aiming for some Roboco**. Writer-Director Antonio Campos did develop an intriguing narrative on teenage angst, trauma, and insecurity; however, the immensely slow pace was more of an afterschool exercise of futility. Hey, I am down with slow pacing films, but Campos was too much of a "campesino" on the doldrums that hamper a slow-paced movie. His scribe was not a screenplayer valedictorian classic, but it did warrant a passing grade. I would not say it is Hollywood Miller Time yet for this young actor, but Ezra Miller's starring performance as Rob was a credible one even though it was a bit too monotone for my taste. Michael Stuhlbarg, of "A Serious Man", was superb as the self-centered school director Mr. Burke; Stuhlbarg is one seriously good actor that will probably garner a few Oscar nominations in his future. The rest of the supporting acting of "Afterschool", primarily comprised of teen actors, is not really worth mentioning, it's a D=Needs Improvement in my gradebook. "Afterschool" does barely make the grade, but it does not graduate itself to teenage movie genre superiority. *** Average

I first heard of this on IFC where the director was mentioned in the same breath as Gus Van Want. Really?? This garbage is the most boring film ever made. At first, it was advertised as Van Sant's Elephant, which is one of the best movies I've ever seen. That film was robbed of a best picture Oscar in my opinion. The difference between this film and Elephant is simply direction. Director Campos has created characters we don't care about and puts them in situations so dull and even far fetched if you managed to keep your eyes opened till the very end you've accomplished a lot. Depressing, boring, and manipulative the director here is trying to make you feel like you're watching something of merit in terms of art. How this movie won awards is beyond me. I can only say skip this one because you won't get the running time to watch this garbage back in your life. A complete bore and waste of time.

Critics who have been comparing Campos to Kubrick and Van Sant must owe him a favor.This film was not the worst movie I have ever seen,it just could of been so much better. I did not mind the slow pace. I did not mind any of the acting,it just didn't deliver with the story. I thought this movie was building up to some climax that I wouldn't see coming: *SPOILER* it doesn't. *SPOILER* Sure, it showed him possibly choking out one of the twins, but I had more expectations that. *SPOILER* Why didn't he rat out his douche bag roommate for possibly supplying the drugs, or why didn't he rat out the school after the counselor told him that the school knew the twins were drug fiends and had problems. Also, *SPOILER* the memorial video he made was stupid. It really was. I thought it would of been better if he exposed the twins as druggies and somehow managed to pile in information to show that the school knew and didn't do anything about it. Instead, it was a horrible clip of people staring, almost like he was stalking them . Like I said before, I didn't mind the slow pace, but Jesus, it's gotta build to something. Some positives about this film were how they showed the curiosity of teenagers and sex, how Campos took a modern direction with twisted teens in today's society and technology, and how awkward it can be to live with a roommate you hate.Ill finish off with saying this: If you find yourself halfway through this movie and you are not enjoying it, do yourself a favor and turn it off...you won't miss anything.