After Sex

This a story about a woman in love. Love is painful. And so is the movie...

The movie is bad in any reasonable sense, except maybe for the acting. If you are renting it with English subtitles, be prepared to miss about 50% of them. The photography is awful. The director tried to be pretentious, which made things worse. Let me tell you one thing about this movie:

If you didn't see it, keep it that way!

For people who worry that they might be giving this film short shrift because they might not have caught all the subtitles, stop worrying. In French it's just as bad. You could miss all the subtitles and not miss anything. And it's a shame because this is a film, made by a woman, about a middle aged, married with 2 kids woman, falling helplessly in love with a much younger man. So it's the reversal of the standard scenario. Unfortunately, there is nothing here to keep us interested for the length of the film. The acting, though, is excellent.

"After Sex" tells of a comfortably successful middle aged professional women with a family who has an affair with a man 20 years her junior and goes into deep depression when he leaves. A very ordinary film in all respects, "After Sex" does not do justice to the story and mixes humor with drama schizophrenically rather than synergistically. Though the film does have its moments and is not completely devoid of appeal, it's not worth all the subtitle reading.

Two scenes illustrate the subtlety and sophistication of this film. In the opening sequence, the image of a cat in heat is followed by that of the heroine-director writhing in the throes of a self-administered orgasm. In a contrasting scene, following some clothes-ripping sex, we see our heroine crossing the street *floating on a little cloud*.

Rather than a portrait of uncontrollable "animal" passion, this film has the feel of a manifesto: you men think you can portray female sexuality, *I* know what it's really like. But there is no genuine sensuality here, only hysterical febrility. After the sensitive portrayals of _Outremer_, rooted in historical reality, the creation of this empty cat-woman and her so-predictable stud is most disappointing. Even the implausible secondary plot of an elderly woman who murders her husband is refreshing by comparison.

It is a typical European movie and a typical woman's movie. If you happen to like both, as I do, you will find it quite captivating and well made. There is not much action per se though quite a few nude sex scenes, done quite tastefully and not pruriently. The acting is good, the cinematography is average European, which is also good. There is some suspense. It is definitely not the best movie my wife and I have ever watched but we did not grudge the time and only once or twice felt like fast forwarding but the very next frame changed our minds.