AFTER THIS DEATH
(director/writer: Lucio Castro; cinematographer: Barton Cortright; editor: Kali Kahn; music: Yegang Yoo/Robert Lombardo; cast: Mia Maestro (Isabel), Lee Pace (Elliot), Philip Ettinger (Ronnie), Rupert Friend (Ted), Gwendoline Christie (Alice); Runtime: 96; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Caroline Clark, Patrick Donovan, Anita Gou, David Hinojosa, Luca Intili; Kindred Spirit; 2025)
“Unnerving, enigmatic and absurd art house psychological drama.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
In his second feature film Argentine writer-director Lucio Castro (“End of the Century”) delivers this unnerving, enigmatic and absurd art house psychological drama. It’s a slow-boil mystery that turns into a Vertigo-like thriller that’s more like a loopy David Lynchian type of flick than anything Hitchcockian.
The mellow and verbose hippie vocalist Elliott (Lee Pace) started a long time ago an acid rock band in NYC with his brother Ronnie (Philip Ettinger).
On a fall day, in upstate NY, on a hiking trail, Elliott meets by chance the pregnant Argentinian dubbing actress Isabel (Mia Maestro) while exploring a cave. She’s locked into a questionable marriage with her businessman American husband Ted (Rupert Friend), who she lives with in a luxury cabin in rural upstate NY. She’s unhappy he’s often away on business trips. Though charmed by the rocker, the Spanish-speaking Isabel refuses to take his phone number.
After a few weeks go by, she accompanies her musical journalist friend Alice (Gwendoline Christie) to a rock concert in NYC and realizes that Elliott is the frontman of a popular stoner cult rock band. She no longer can resist him when they meet backstage, especially after he tells her: “I’m a great pussy eater.”
With her hubby out-of-town, Elliott visits her and they make love in her cabin and in the upstate cabin he rented with his brother as a recording studio.
The kinky sexual encounter with the rock star comes to a halt when she undergoes a stillbirth. Then Elliott mysteriously vanishes from the rock scene, leaving only cryptic messages. His devoted fans go online to blame Alice for the group’s cancelled concerts and the delay in completing his 11th album. A toxic social media scene unfolds, as the super fans called TPYS (The People You See) start threatening to harm her.
What all this means is probably nothing.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 3/3/2025 GRADE: C
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