Afterglow | | Cast : | Nick Nolte, Julie Christie | | Director : | Alan Rudolph | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | December 26, 1997 | | DVD Released Date : | October 14, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | disappointing | Content
 | I really wanted to like this movie, but, in the end, it just wouldn't let me. The pace was slow but the characters seemed to have interesting possiblilties at first. The actors, as far as I could tell, did a good job with the material they were given. The weakness was in the story. It didn't go anywhere. The characters didn't learn anything. They were no different at the end than the beginning accept one of them was pregnant. The character of Jeffrey was contradictory and hard to believe. He was one minute frigid and almost robotic, then the next sex-crazed over an older woman. He admits to himself that he loves his wife and yet goes out of his way to say something especially cutting to her simply because she wants a baby. He pretends to live on the edge, but is ultra-controlled and lifeless. The other characters were more likable but just as incapable of learning or evolving. So what was the point? Very unsatisfying. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 26, 2002 | | Summary | Another reason why Julie Christie should continue to perform | Content
| Here's Julie Christie more beautiful, more enchanting, sexier than she has been since her role in Doctor Zhivago thirty years ago. She's an ageless wonder, delicate and sweet while also being smart and tough. Her performance as Phyllis Mann, a washed up B-Movie actress is entrancing, so much so that when viewing the film, I found myself ignoring the other actors while she was on screen. I couldn't take my eyes from her for a moment, though that's no slander at her co-stars. Nick Nolte is as watchable and likable as ever as Christie's philandering husband. Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Lee Miller have never really been my cup of tea, but perform complex parts with admirable skill. They are a young couple with all the material possessions in the world but separated by an emotional iciness between them. Boyle wants a child while Miller does not, so she turns to handyman Nolte. Miller happens to meet Christie and becomes fascinated by her while she allows herself to be seduced as much out of revenge as curiosity. The film is stylishly directed by Alan Rudolph and I give special credit to cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita for his excellent camera work, though I envy him for getting to stare through his lens every day to see Julie Christie before him. A touching film with fine performances all around, with Christie the standout(yet again). |
| Rating | | | Date | March 05, 2001 | | Summary | Old Roses, Young Weeds | Content
| A fading light that illuminates the day, when it's too late to change anything about it, is the Afterglow. In the gray city of Montreal, two couples prance in its dim daze, uttering writer/director, Alan Rudolph's highly stylized dialogue: Lucky (Nick Nolte) and Phyllis Mann (Julie Christie) have been married for over twenty years. He is a philandering fix-it man, she is wittily morose ex-B-movie actress. They have an arrangement about his philandering that goes back to a painful incident in their past, one that is clear in the present's Afterglow. More upscale, and younger, are the Byrons, Jeffrey and Marrianne, a miserably rich yuppie couple. He entertains his suicide fantasies by stepping out onto his high-rise office ledge, sticking his knee into the air, waiting for a strong wind to push him off. She is a semi-hysterical, insatiate housewife, who is building a baby room for a baby her husband promises they will never have. The plot mechanics of what follows would be farcical if it weren't for the pace. In the yuppie's lavish house (similar to the one Al Pacino called "post-modernistic bull#*%^" in Heat), Lucky goes to build the frustated housewife nursery for the phantom infant. Given their respective marital status, an affair, especially in film with jazz dominating the soundtrack, is mandatory. By sheer coincidence, or by the writer's desire for contrast, Jeffrey and Marrianne meet. Suicidal he maybe, but as his well complemented secretary would attest, he does have an attraction, albeit non-sexual, to older women. This is their first exchange: Phyllis: I noticed your wedding ring. Jeffrey: Its removable. Phyllis: Does your wife know that? Jeffrey: If we find her, we'll tell her. Rudolph is so fond of such rhythmical gesticulation of dialogue that instead of the above standing out, it could be a random selection from his script. The whole thing is written this way, hence defeating any dramatic aspirations the film might have had; if these people talk like this ALL the time, then what planet are they from? This is that part where I'm supposed to say why I thought the picture is not what it might have been. It is true that the actors, with the exception of the Oscar nominated Christi, struggle to create anything special under the director's pretense; Miller is fun in role that is virtually opposite to his Sick Boy in Trainspotting, but the character is one note. Boyle brings nothing new to frivolity and neurosis. And Nolte is just Nolte. But if you were familiar with the films of Alan Rudolph you'd know that he hasn't failed here. Afterglow is, probably, exactly what he wanted it to be. A small scale drama with a slightly skewed sense of reality. He is the patron saint of the slightly off-key film (his underrated 1990 murder mystery Mortal Thoughts was realistic only because every other murder mystery was not). So Afterglow is no surprise, just another part of the man's repertoire. The only thing that might make Rudolph's oak-lined, smokey, booze drenched creation worth visiting is a jewel of performance by Julie Christi. She is able to sell Rudolph's silly non-jokes, as when she calls her husband Lucky Mann (which is his real name, ho ho), without letting on if she is loving, mocking, hurt or disgusted by him. She is the enigmatic, fascinating mystery the rest of the film only thinks it is. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 27, 2001 | | Summary | Afterburn | Content
| Christie and Boyle sink their teeth into great parts but this love rectangle unfolds too slowly to be that entertaining. Rudolph's attempts at screwball comedy are ill conceived, but his direction is good. Too bad his male characters do nothing but think with, uh, you know. |
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