Before & After (1996)

Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep play a couple going through a parents' nightmare: Their son (Edward Furlong) is accused of murdering a local girl. What's worse, he's gone into hiding, seeming to lend credence to the charges. Neeson, as a passionate, intuitive artist, tries to take matters into his own hands; when he finds what appear to be blood-stained clothes in the kid's car, he cleans the whole thing up and winds up destroying evidence, making matters increasingly worse. Before and After is a solid if stolid drama, with a strong, controlled performance by Streep as the worried wife and mother, while Neeson comes off as overwrought playing the controlling father. Given the subject matter and the presence of director Barbet Schroeder, this movie should be a lot more interesting than it is. --Marshall Fine Amazon.com

An average adaptation of a disturbing book

To put it simply, Before and After is a story about a family of four whose lives are forever altered when their son/brother is named a prime suspect in the death of the boy's girlfriend. His father finds evidence of the crime in the trunk of his son's car and disposes of it immediately, terrified of what it all means. Thus the story is also about the lengths to which a father goes to protect his son.

There's no doubt that the book is richer than the movie. I can't deny that. I will say, though, that having seen the movie first, I am able to appreciate it in a way I maybe wouldn't be able to if I'd seen it after reading the book. There are some changes that are a bit obnoxious. For example, the death scene is different. I understand why they changed it. It was necessary in order to gain more sympathy for Jacob. I think this movie was trying to show us how bad things can happen in normal families without having to ask quite so much of the viewer. Yes, it does water down the message. In fact, it completely changes the message. Not only has the death scene been Hollywoodized, so has the character of Jacob. There's that strong hint of uncontrollable anger in him, but he doesn't do the same horrible things that the book Jacob does. The tension is still there, but the dilemma is far more simplistic and commercialized. As a result, the movie feels, at times, like a lifeless version of the novel. But what do you expect? That's Hollywood. At least we still have the book for those with the initiative to read it. Just be warned, the book is quite disturbing. I read it so long ago and I don't think that I was able to appreciate all the layers to it at the time, so I can't really recommend it. But what I do know is that it's got more depth to it than the movie does.

But none of this is really helpful to those who haven't read the book. On its own, the movie makes for a compelling story but it does have some flaws. I thought the acting was OK, though the characters were a bit one-dimensional. Jacob didn't seem to express much emotion which makes it hard to relate to him. This is kind of ironic, given the fact that the movie was drastically altered to make him more sympathetic to the viewer. Honestly, though, if Jacob had been portrayed in the movie the way he was portrayed in the book, it would have been impossible to get through the film because the viciousness of his actions combined with his zero personality would have gotten to be too much. As for the plot, I think it was interesting enough, though even if you haven't read the book, you may feel like it's a bit tame.

I did really love the setting. The whole atmosphere of the movie was perfect. There's that sense of isolation from the world but it's not entirely unpleasant. In a weird way, it's almost comforting. That sounds strange, I know. I think the movie does a good job conveying both the suffocation and the love of family.


September 30, 2008

Wake me when it's over

When sulky teen Jacob Ryan (Edward Furlong) is accused of killing his girlfriend, his parents (Meryl Streep, Liam Neeson) first try to cover up what really happened; later, the truth comes out. Or is it the truth?

How such talented actors could make such an abysmal film is nothing short of amazing. The movie is just bad. Every word that the characters say sounds like, well, movie dialogue. None of it rings true. Everyone - from the parents, to the boy, to his little sister, to the lawyer - is way too Noble and Heroic to be believable. The pregnant pauses, pained expressions, and lofty platitudes about loving one's family and doing the right thing are over-done and just plain boring.

There's no question Streep and Neeson are fine actors, but here they over-act shamelessly, hampered by ridiculous dialogue and a script that never quite knows where it's going. Alfred Molina is good as the lawyer, but he is still saddled with trite dialogue and courtroom drama that would have embarrassed Perry Mason. Furlong's specialty was playing alienated, sullen kids, but he overdoes it and sleepwalks through the movie. The corny voice-over narration saying life changes forever after an event like being accused of murder isn't true; their life seems pretty much the same afterward. I give it two stars for the picturesque New England scenery. January 5, 2008

A Much Underrated Film

Since I missed this movie when it played in theatres and love anything that Meryl Streep does and also am a big fan of the writer Rosellen Brown, whose novel the film was based on, I rented the DVD, expecting the worst, from some of the reviews I had read. I am happy to say that my time was not wasted in watching "Before and After." Meryl Streep as always is the consummate actress. When she is on the screen, you cannot take your eyes off her. Liam Neeson certainly is no slouch as an actor either.

The film stays fairly close to the story line of the novel, as best I recall. Ms. Brown's novels, though very serious, always ring true. In her world, nothing is promised. In this instance a family living in Massachusetts is torn apart when the teenage son Jacob is accused of murdering a local teenage girl. While both the novel and film are entitled "Before and After," we are dealing essentially with the "after" here, as in one moment both our entire lives and the lives of those we love can be irrevocably changed. This movie asks hard questions. To what lengths should one go to in protecting his family? Should one tell the truth no matter what the cost? Is one innocent until proven guilty?

This is certainly a film well worth watching. If you liked the movie-- or even if you didn't-- you will find the novel ever more thought-provoking. December 10, 2006

A Family Torn Asunder

Skimming through the reviews for this movie, I was disappointed at a couple of the extremely harsh criticisms. While there are perhaps some elements bearing a semblance to a made-for-TV feature, "trash" seems an utterly over-the-top criticism, missing the very simple point it made. I was very moved by this movie, and watched it three times when it was new, on VHS. It's on my list of films I consider underrated and ignored by audiences, as it was simply not an exciting story per se. Something about the snow and cold seem to tamp down what action there was, and the filmmakers didn't try to broaden its appeal by pumping up the action with some cinematic gimmick. Instead, they opted to simply tell a story. You're either connected to it by its premise or you're not. I got connected early on, and I found myself almost panting in dread for the father's desperate moments as he destroyed the evidence, one of the few scenes that would pass as having any REAL action. I immediatly took his side, understood his disregard for the incorrectness of it. At the end I was heartbroken.

Every now and then, everyone lines up to praise something like SIDEWAYS (a good film; I'm not disagreeing), but the filmmakers' attempts at indie-film understatement are belied by a script full of quirky characters stimulated by equally quirky events. A film like BEFORE AND AFTER depends strictly on the familial realism in which obligation and dependability are core values, and what happens when events challenge their depth and present the necessity of risking one's own freedom in the slim hope of preserving a son's. Sometimes a more primal integrity supercede's one's obligation to the law. Nothing cute or sweet happens here, and it's strictly for mature audiences, in that the subject matter is presented soley from the adults' point of view, from their sense of responsibility and self-doubt.

Whenever I'm participating in a film newsgroup or a film subscriber-list and the subject of favorite but lesser-known films comes up, I always mention BEFORE AND AFTER. I'm glad to see that it's been released on DVD and I'm going to be ordering it as soon as I finish this review. November 12, 2005

Toothless story

The great shame of this movie is that it veered so terribly from the premise of the novel.

Brown's novel was so gripping and emotionally difficult precisely because Jacob did murder his girlfriend in cold blood. We struggle with the family as they come to grips with this hard truth: a seemingly "normal" family can indeed produce a dysfunctional, disturbed child and educated, thoughtful parents are often powerless to understand why. All of the dramatic power came from the adults struggling to figure out what to do with a son they don't recognize, and a younger sister knowing very well who her brother is but unable to share that information because the adults are interested in hearing it.

The movie pulled the teeth from this story when it gave us the eleventh-hour confession of Jacob's crime as *an accident*. Good grief. The movie, which wasn't very good to start with, then collapsed into unbelievable, sentimental pap.

My sympathies are with the author, who must have been appalled. April 18, 2004

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