THE AFTERMATH

Movie Review #8356 THE AFTERMATH.

Post-WWII drama set in Hamburg towards the end of 1945.

Keira Knightley is the wife of an aristocratic senior British army officer charged with keeping the peace in an environment where Nazis are still running round blowing people away. Being ruling class they’re assigned a stately home on the outskirts of the city, trouble is it is still occupied by its owner, a German architect along with his daughter & house servants. And so the fun starts with lotsa complicated relationships and interactions and with a dialogue and screenplay that is fully engaging and absorbing.

Awesome performance by Ms Knightley with a not-far-behind from unknown Flora Thiemann on German daughter duty. Much of the proceedings take place across a snowbound landscape which only adds to the bleakness of a defeated and destroyed city and its people.

Overall a brilliant essay on how trauma and tragedy can dent even the strongest of relationships leading to unexpected and disturbing emotions and behaviour yet going the way of what feels or seems best, is not always the most appropriate option.

Unpredictable and engaging around a time rarely covered in a war movie, for those who think and the best one in a while, 9/10