After Love

Even when accounting for its forced and uncertain finale, this is the most poignant and perceptive thing that LaFosse has ever made, and therefore also the most painful.

In a remarkable performance that at times suggests a desperate animal with nothing to lose, Kahn conveys the fact that Boris’ attachment to Marie hasn’t yet run its course.

Unapologetically aimed at the arthouse crowd, this is superior filmmaking. Superbly acted and well written, it stakes its claim in the pantheon of love-gone-wrong watches.

Lafosse, along with actors Bérénice Bejo and Cédric Kahn, infuse the film with a brutal honesty that makes it, if not exactly enjoyable, certainly compelling.

Despite these sharp moments, there’s a frustrating looseness to Lafosse’s narrative, feeling as though many of After Love’s scenes could be rearranged without changing the film’s flow. In turn, a slackness undercuts the tension the film is otherwise trying to build.

After Love is like being stuck at a dinner with an unpleasant couple who won’t stop squabbling.

Not unlike an expensively tattooed panhandler, the couple elicit only a skeptical kind of sympathy.