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Afterschool

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Afterschool (2009)

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Reviews Counted:38

Fresh:29

Rotten:9

Average Rating:6.4/10

Consensus: Antonio Campos'Afterschool is an intelligent, ambitious debut that boasts strong performances and plenty of ideas.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Oct 2, 2009 Limited

Synopsis: Early twentysomething writer/director Antonio Campos makes a startlingly assured directorial debut with AFTERSCHOOL. Set in an exclusive Northeastern prep school, the film follows Robert (Ezra... Early twentysomething writer/director Antonio Campos makes a startlingly assured directorial debut with AFTERSCHOOL. Set in an exclusive Northeastern prep school, the film follows Robert (Ezra Miller), a confused youngster who spends most of his time watching videos on the Internet. Some of these are harmless, but some are much more troubling, including pornography and actual fights that have been captured on various consumer-grade video cameras. Robert himself doesn't appear to have violent desires, yet when he gets his hands on a video camera for a class project and starts becoming closer to fellow classmate Amy (Addison Timlin), he experiences feelings he has previously only encountered on a computer screen. During the filming of a class project, Robert unwittingly captures the overdose of two of the school's most popular girls--twins, no less--sending him into an introverted, despondent tailspin. Campos's film owes an obvious debt to the work of German provocateur Michael Haneke, and not only in its controversial subject matter. More directly, it's in Campos's ability to create a palpable sense of tension with the camera. Credit must be given here to cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (WILD COMBINATION: A PORTRAIT OF ARTHUR RUSSELL), who uses a slowly roaming camera when necessary, but otherwise maintains a static, off-kilter frame, hinting at the dangers that lurk just beyond every corner. AFTERSCHOOL speaks volumes about the influence of the Internet and technology on our nation's impressionable youth. [More]

Starring: Ezra Miller, Jeremy White, Emory Cohen, Michael Stuhlbarg

Starring: Ezra Miller, Jeremy White, Emory Cohen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Addison Timlin, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lee Wilkof, Paul Sparks, Bill Raymond, Gary Wilmes, Christopher McCann

Director: Antonio Campos

Director: Antonio Campos
Screenwriter: Antonio Campos
Producer: Josh Mond, Sean Durkin
Composer: Rakotondrabe Gael
Studio: IFC Films

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Reviews for Afterschool

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This is a little movie well worth checking out. The performances are very natural, and the themes are enticingly provocative.

Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | comment Comment
11/04/09
Mike McGranaghan
Mike McGranaghan
Aisle Seat

It's both a supremely controlled exercise in form and tone and an intriguing exploration of the ways new technology intersects with age-old questions of dominance, control and individuality, particularly in the school setting.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
10/09/09
Andrew O'Hehir
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Anthony Campos (who was 24 when he made this jolting pic) captures the numbing psychic scramble that just might cause the YouTube generation to go morally haywire. Or become filmmakers.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
10/07/09
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Whatever happened to the analog days when kids found contentment by cramming phone booths, sitting on flagpoles or simply going steady?

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment Comment
10/06/09
Kam Williams
Kam Williams
NewsBlaze

Antonio Campos's character study of a prep school social misfit named Robert (Ezra Miller) is an intimate psychological journey into a coded juvenile mindset.

Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
10/03/09
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

Perhaps it is the intent of Afterschool, to create such a distancing effect the viewer is forced to observe, perhaps even critique these young people’s experience. If this is the case, Afterschool is one long period of detention.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
10/02/09
Cole Hornaday
Cole Hornaday
Boxoffice Magazine

Though thin on story, the film shows poise and vision, using bleak cinema-realite techniques with chilling effect. Campos promises to be heard from again.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
10/02/09
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Those with the patience to wait out Mr. Campos’s overindulgences will definitely leave Afterschool unnerved, which is probably exactly what he had in mind.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
10/02/09
Neil Genzlinger
Neil Genzlinger
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos’ film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late ’00s.

Full Review Source: AV Club | comment Comment
10/01/09
Scott Tobias
Scott Tobias
AV Club

Deserves credit for managing to make prep school seem like the most hellish place on the planet, but is at some points hard to watch for all the wrong reasons.

Full Review Source: CampBlood.org | comment Comment
09/30/09
Brian Juergens
Brian Juergens
CampBlood.org

If you’ve ever balked at drifty solitude or video meta-hell in the films of Gus Van Sant or Michael Haneke, this pale imitation will drive you batty.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
09/30/09
Nicolas Rapold
Nicolas Rapold
Time Out New York

Afterschool, the almost frighteningly accomplished first feature made by Antonio Campos when he was 24, is high school as horror show.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
09/29/09
J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An intelligent, often gripping, and intriguingly autobiographical drama of paranoia.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
08/24/09
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]

At heart it’s another unpleasant existential crisis for another unpleasant schoolboy in another unpleasant American prep school.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
08/24/09
Rebecca Nicholson
Rebecca Nicholson
Sunday Times (UK)

It's an intriguing scenario, but what makes the film special (if at times slightly trying) is that it's all artfully shot in an apparently artless manner.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
08/24/09
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

With a lingering and often awkward style, Afterschool is ambitious but ultimately lacklustre.

Full Review Source: Little White Lies | comment Comment
08/24/09
Adam Woodward
Adam Woodward
Little White Lies

Afterschool presents modern youth in a cold light. It’s difficult to like but even harder to dismiss.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
08/24/09
Elliott Noble
Elliott Noble
Sky Movies

Reminiscent of the alienation in classic Antonioni films or the paranoia of Michael Haneke, the icy Afterschool is a little too self-conscious in its artiness. Alternating between the fascinating and the tedious, it still worms its way under you skin.

Full Review Source: Daily Express | comment Comment
08/24/09
Allan Hunter
Allan Hunter
Daily Express

If there is one distinctive and promising voice to come out of the info-bite aesthetic of the YouTube generation it is Antonio Campos, whose debut feature Afterschool puts an intriguing spin on the high-school tragedy.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
08/21/09
Wendy Ide
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]

The film has a lot to say about the effect of technology on teenage interaction, how schools repress individuality and how sexual awakening causes, rather than relieves, teenage angst.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
08/21/09
David Jenkins
David Jenkins
Time Out
 
 
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