After Everything

Yes this general storyline has been used quite a bit lately it seems, but while not radically different this was unique enough to be intriguing. All aspects were well-done (writing, cinematography, acting, etc.), didn't try to be anything more than it is.

Never heard of this movie before watching it, but when I saw Lip from Shameless in it I thought, why not give it a shot. Now, after watching it I find myself feeling pretty ambivalent to something I honestly wish I would've liked more. After Everything is a really heartfelt story of a man who learns he's got cancer, asks a woman out and then proceeds through a relationship built on the foundations of all this turmoil and the eventually aftermath of all that. As someone who's always wanted a '10 years later' look at a lot of these fairy tale, action movie, hollywood romances born out of outrageous circumstance and knowing they can't possibly work... Ariel and the Prince? Come on, there is no way they reach a ten year anniversary. She's a fish! They'll be sick of each other in a two years tops. Anyhow, my issues with movie romances aside, I love a movie that legitimately tries to explore these issues.

Problem is, this feels a little too generic, a little too unpolished and, as much as I'd love to feel different, I want the writing and the acting cranked up a level. As it stands, it just fails to make me really feel some of these big emotional moments and I feel like, in different hands, this could have been devastatingly effective. Instead, we get a movie I can say I really appreciate for now but I don't think I'm going to remember it for very long. It just doesn't do enough to separate itself from the pack and make itself remarkable.

Still, if you're looking for, honestly kind of a downer movie, this isn't an awful one. I love some of the ideas and the exploration of these relationships, it's just lacking in the script and the acting. If it's on, check it out, or stream it from somewhere but I wouldn't pay anything for this.

Having been subjected to Nicholas Sparks's romantic sludge for years, I am pleased with a romantic drama that feels real and painful without hearts, flowers, or bottle messages. The brilliance of After Everything (fka Shotgun) is that writer/directors Hannah Marks and Joey Power keep sentimentality at bay while directing two fine actors, whose chemistry is astonishingly believable. It's the year's best romance.

Elliot (Jeremy Allen White), reminding me of Dustin Hoffman's Graduate look and persona, gets a life-defining diagnosis while meeting the girl of his dreams, Mia (Maika Monroe). Despite his bleak prognosis, they fall in love and marry. Of course, already the situation is unreal, but the characters are so sincerely in love that we become complicit in their seemingly skewered decision.

However, the film is dedicated to showing authentic love that sacrifices certainty for the abstract promise of everlasting love. And they love in a fetchingly warm connection that makes us forget he seems doomed to early death.

I'm not an overly-sentimental type, but After Everything is close to my perfect screen romance. It's real and touching without the dross that usually accompanies this type of drama. A date night-you bet!

Really powerful moving drama showing reactions of certain people in dealing with a young man with cancer. It's a true portrait of what it must be like for some people after they beat the disease. The central relationship between Maika Monroe & Jeremy Allen White is great and real and makes the movie work.

I REALLY liked the first half of this movie. There was a lot of potential. The movie already moved at a fast pace but I felt like the second half was way too rushed.

It could have possibly worked better if the movie were longer but it just didn't work for me.

Then we get to the ending. What even was that?!

Again, MAYBE it could have worked if the movie was longer but ultimately, I felt ripped off.