Afterschool

Though it undoubtedly bears promise, this is a film which will test your patience like few others. The film is slow-paced, which one could argue is a way for Campos to build further isolation from the main character, yet fails to depict anything interesting in its entire running time.

The characters are all cardboard-thin, save for the protagonist whose loneliness and eccentricity is apparent yet inaccessible. Believe me, I tried to feel some sort of emotional connection with him, but never achieved much except a strong yearning to fast forward the film through conversations that initially felt pointless and ultimately proved to be so. If Campos can take his skills of plot-structuring and possibly add more dialog to further reveal other aspects of his characters, then I strongly believe he has the potential to make an excellent film, but I just found this one to be an inaccessible drag.

I really can say I don't think I liked this. But it's not necessarily for the same reasons some are giving for similar dislike. I didn't like it because, despite the mind-numbingly slow pacing, I still sat through it until the end.

I went to film school (legit), and I hate films that are well aware they're of that " independent" variety. Unfortunately, you can't just use that moniker and expect everyone to forgive your film for being pretentious or boring.

Yes, this movie had several boring scenes. Unnecessarily boring. Don't try to find art, it's boring. I don't feel that long, single shots with heads cut out of the picture to be edgy or unique. I find it as forced art. Trying to show you have a way of breaking from traditional cinematography. I got news...it doesn't always work. This film is evidence.

The acting was pretty good, so i will say the characters really played their parts well. I felt what Rob was feeling because he's talented and did what he could with his part. Same with some of the others. That being said, I think the director had too many things he wanted to squeeze into one film. Perhaps this would've been better as a limited series.

You can't give us a compelling plot only to make us crave the real aftermath we believed we were entitled to. The director makes us wait and gives us a tiny little steak at the end as a final, disappointing meal.

There was a lot that could've done to make this film better. Develop characters better. We get it....teens, depression, isolation, discovery...bla bla bla. But not all are pathetic, confused worms.

Run-time...if you're not planning on delivering some kind of denouement, then go for a quicker Hollywood ending so we don't sit up late writing reviews on how we wasted time.

Stick with one story. Don't try to start sublots and abandon them because you can't remember where you're going. You're the storyteller. You're the one who takes us on the journey.

You're all wondering why I gave it a 6? I'm not sure....can't decide.

I am going to take you to "Afterschool"!!! OK, maybe after reading my pun-infested movie review, you might think of it more as puntention (I mean detention), and think that I have no class. But please just swim with these school of puns for a little while. "Afterschool" is a dark, quirky and semi-interesting film about an isolated prep-school teen named Rob who witnesses fatal drug overdoses of preppie female twins while working on an audio/visual school club project. Therefore, he is able to gather video footage of the twins' deaths. Rob is traumatized from the experience, and has difficulty coping with it. Rob's roommate is Dave, a cocky & arrogant bully who manipulates Rob on a daily basis and may or may not had a hand in the cause of the twin overdoses. Mr. Burke is the school director who is more concerned about the image of the school and its funders then of the ordeals and stress that teenagers go through. Amy is Rob's student partner in the audio-visual club and this Amy might be aiming for some Roboco**. Writer-Director Antonio Campos did develop an intriguing narrative on teenage angst, trauma, and insecurity; however, the immensely slow pace was more of an afterschool exercise of futility. Hey, I am down with slow pacing films, but Campos was too much of a "campesino" on the doldrums that hamper a slow-paced movie. His scribe was not a screenplayer valedictorian classic, but it did warrant a passing grade. I would not say it is Hollywood Miller Time yet for this young actor, but Ezra Miller's starring performance as Rob was a credible one even though it was a bit too monotone for my taste. Michael Stuhlbarg, of "A Serious Man", was superb as the self-centered school director Mr. Burke; Stuhlbarg is one seriously good actor that will probably garner a few Oscar nominations in his future. The rest of the supporting acting of "Afterschool", primarily comprised of teen actors, is not really worth mentioning, it's a D=Needs Improvement in my gradebook. "Afterschool" does barely make the grade, but it does not graduate itself to teenage movie genre superiority. *** Average

Afterschool is a movie about a boarding school in United States and how rotten is the environment there. The film's pace is slow but that helps the viewer appreciate the photography and the filming technique. The comments of the director about the hypocrisy of the school teachers and the faulty communication between students and their parents are discreet but effective in a filming manner. The acting is superb (most of the cast has worked at New York theaters) and there are some innovations in the cinematography (different angles and film-editing games). It certainly reminds us of "Elephant" (Gus Van Sant) because of the subject but here the interest is centered in drug abuse and how someone witnesses it even though he/she is not connected to the drug-user. In addition, it comments on many more perspectives of puberty. An interesting film that leaves many thoughts to the viewer without forcing him/her to create a specific opinion. A definite must-see!

The film, which is heavily influenced by Gus van Sant and Michael Haneke, is also known as the production that introduced Ezra Miller to the world.

Filmed at the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, Afterschool premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Although Campos does not hide that he was influenced by Sant and Haneke while making this film, the style of the film does not go beyond 'young people are fond of sex and forbidden things, this is the source of everything' with a perspective that has nothing to do with the language of the cinema of these two directors...

Although Miller paints a terrific composition for the character he plays, the perspective of the director makes even this unimportant.