A Quietly Devastating Slow Burn On What It Really Means To Belong

Despite a humble budget and relatively low-scale approach, Khan ensures that the story at the heart of “After Love” is anything but — thanks primarily to the secret weapon up his sleeve in actor Joanna Scanlan, working in perfect synchronicity with a deceptively sharp script. Upon traveling to Calais, France, Mary locates the target of her ire and the cause of her crumbling worldview (Khan breaks from his restrained tone and adds a touch of blunt surrealism to the proceedings, notably with a disturbing vision of the White Cliffs disintegrating before Mary’s very eyes while she crosses the English Channel on her way to France) and finds nothing like what she expected. Mistaken for a cleaning maid before she can even get a word in and promptly enlisted to help Geneviève prepare for an upcoming move, oblivious of her lover’s tragic passing, only Scanlan’s fiercely internalized (though never inaccessible) performance keeps this otherwise dubious situation on firm footing.

Though we may struggle to comprehend exactly why Mary would silently go along with such demeaning circumstances under the eye of her late husband’s mistress, “After Love” never betrays even a hint of uncertainty or indecision — not unlike Mary herself. With the patience of an expert storyteller, the middle hour of the film steadily unspools new layers and new revelations that constantly flips the script on viewers. The appearance of Geneviève and Ahmed’s illegitimate teenage son Solomon, played by Talid Ariss, infinitely complicates an already-messy scenario, but more intimate details like finding Ahmed’s clothing in the laundry or seeing Solomon watch old home videos of his father cause the otherwise rock-solid Mary to show cracks underneath her impenetrable surface.

The more she surreptitiously inserts herself into Geneviève’s life and learns through her unique perspective that someone comfortable with adultery isn’t necessarily a monster, the less Mary’s able to pull back from her own morbid curiosity and the surprising bond she’s already begun to develop with this family. The character’s entire emotional journey, remarkably enough, remains held together by Scanlan’s calm, measured, and intensely vulnerable performance.