LFF Review: After Love (Aleem Khan)

It took me a while to place the faces of actresses Joanna Scanlan and Nathalie Richard as I was immersed in After Love. One of the stand-out films from a top notch selection at the 2020 London Film Festival. I last saw Scanlan featuring in the eccentric British political comedy, The Thick of It (during yet more re-watches). While Richard flaunted her expressive dance moves in Jacques Rivette’s under-seen 1995 gem, Haut bas fragile.

Their respective roles in After Love, this beautifully written and directed film from first time filmmaker Aleem Khan, is something many, many miles away from those recollections. After Love is a tender, traditional drama film. One which comes as quite a refreshing experience, even in its deeply emotional landscape. The grounded Scanlan and Richard are devastatingly good here.

The unlikeliness of the connection of their characters is hardly as real as the unraveling truth before them. Mary Hussain (Joanna Scanlan) discovers something of a secret life that her husband has been living for many years. To call this unexpected is an understatement. A life-changing revelation that propels Mary from her Dover home, across the Channel, to Calais. Where the unavoidable, but tough to comprehend, truth awaits her.

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Aleem Khan opens this 89 minute picture with such a recognisable domestic setting. A Muslim couple prepare to settle down at their English home. She prepares their cups of tea as he gets comfy in the living room. All this happens within the static frame as they chat about the general stuff you or I would too. Only when the wife takes him his tea does the camera ever so slightly begin to push closer, as the suddenly unresponsive husband fails to reply.

The subtlety of the short scene, the intricate movement of the camera, and the familiar back and forth of the couple, carry a heavy impact. We are in that house with Mary as she faces the insurmountable tragedy. Just seconds after she was in casual conversation with her husband without a care in the world.

After Love is primarily about Mary, a woman whose life is hurtled upside down. Her past is over and her future is bleak. We discover Mary is in fact English, who had converted to Islam when she married the love of her life. Her support network and well-established community provide little respite. Painfully captured as Mary sits dumbfounded, dressed in white amidst folk in black during the funeral reception.

It is not until Mary is rummaging through her husband’s (now) old possessions that she finds a clandestine existence. One that must resemble a sudden hammer to the head. Deep in the realm of fresh grief, Mary must now grapple with what her years of sacrifice and devotion are truly worth. Her natural instincts take her over to France, with not much more than an overnight bag, to discover for herself the role of her husband’s other life and those involved.

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Before long, she is on French soil and knocking on a door that will no doubt open a can of proverbial worms. And it is quite by accident and incident that Mary is halted in revealing her identity as she is confronted with the other woman. Understandably gobsmacked, Mary is (conveniently) assumed to be a house help during the last few days as Geneviève and her teen son, Solomon (Talid Ariss), pack up and move away.

That’s right, Geneviève has a son. One whose complexion gives Mary even more painstaking reason to connect the dots. Mary is a stranger in a strange land. But the torrid winds of bereavement have swept her into these new-found strands of life, that had until now been lingering in the shadows.

Aleem Khan presents these sensitive matters with just the kind of delicate poise that warrants it. Both his writing and his direction accommodate those awkward exchanges and aching expressions. The silences – including the household ticks and tocks – speak of such heartfelt moments as completely as the intricate dialogue ought to.

And in those performances, Joanna Scanlan in particular, are portrayals of people you feel you could know, with real problems and feelings. The actress inhabits the crushed Mary magnificently, bottling in the possible resentment and open wounds. Instead following her pursuit into the unknown with the weight of melancholy and her own self-worth dragging her to the edge.

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Scanlan has to act pretty much entirely through her face. Having to bury what emotion she can while engaging accordingly with this new family. At times, of course, as she collapses amidst a flushing tide or hearing her husband’s last voicemail has expired, it might be just too much to hold in.

Due credit is essential for Nathalie Richard as Geneviève, who herself will be hit for six when the tragic news surfaces. A woman who, although plays a minor part in the infidelity, carries a sense of innocence and bewilderment as the drama unfolds. Richard is perfect in balancing the role of motherhood and dealing with the semi-absence of the father of her son.

Solomon has his own secrets bubbling under the surface, and young actor, Talid Ariss, more than convinces. As not just your typical teenager during turbulent times, but as a young man who also needs gaps in his identity filling. His pained expressions evolve from a so-called parental control (or lack of), but he too is not expecting the severity of the situation.

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Khan’s After Love is a fine British drama, dipping its toe in the unfortunate, unforeseeable sadness that can befall the human condition. In the film’s metaphoric white cliffs and somewhat too-nicely wrapped closure, there is some relief from the steadily built tension. But do we need it? In that, the film may take you out of the cloudy realism. A minor distraction rather than a detrimental flaw.

After Love is unnerving, rich in detail, and cautiously moving. An examination of two women (and a boy) from different worlds, holding a once invisible connection. And our sympathies, to varying degrees, are clearly there. There is little judgement to be throttled of the husband’s wrong-doing. That’s not Khan’s prerogative.

Instead, the focus is on the culture and heartbreak of loss and discovery. Khan seamlessly includes spoken dialogue in Urdu and French, as well as English. And Mary maintains her acquired cultural statues by wearing the hijab, as well as still practicing cuisine and prayer. We don’t know if and how that will change. But After Love demonstrates, through a quiet, minimal journey, that those habits are hard to shake off no matter the turmoil.