Director: Hannah Marks, Joey Power
Writer: Hannah Marks, Joey Power (Screenplay)
Starring: Marisa Tomei, Maika Monroe, Gina Gershon, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Jeremy Allen White, Joe Keery, Dean Winters
Plot: A young couple’s relationship develops quickly when one of them is diagnosed with a life-changing illness.
Tagline – Love is Sick
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Romance 101
Story: After Everything starts as we meet Elliot (White) a young man that discovers that he has cancer, one that should be easier to treat and when he meets Mia (Monroe) he starts a new whirlwind romance where the two move very fast about the changes in life, as Mia tries to help him through his treatment with Dr Harden (Tomei).
We see how the two look to build a life together, even if things don’t go well in Elliot’s treatment, showing how a relationship can be hard to build when you don’t know what the future holds.
Thoughts on After Everything
Characters – Elliot is a young man that has been trying to build an app, while working in coffee shop, he discovers that he has cancer and keeps it to himself for the first steps of the treatment, while starting a new relationship with Mia, one that gives him confidence to fight the disease, only it doesn’t seem to give him the focus on what to do with his life. Mia is a young lady that meets Elliot who brings her out of her shell, even after her roommates often try to put pressure on her to meet someone. She falls in love and finds herself moving forward in her career, but struggles with the new life together. We do have the support friends, the parents and best friends that will always be around for advice.
Performances – Jeremy Allen White and Maika Monroe in the leading roles are great together, they do show the ups and downs they are going through and how they can affect the lives together or alone.
Story – The story here follows a young couple that meet, fall in over, even though one has just learnt about his cancer, the pair work together to get through the struggles, only to learn the troubles a young relationship could have. This is a story that shows how life can become more difficult when it comes to dealing with unexpected news, fighting an illness and jumping into things too quickly. We don’t spend much time on the cancer side of the story, focusing more on the relationship between the two, as we see just how they struggle to make things work, everything does feel like a whirlwind romance with the tag on of cancer, rather than anything else, which doesn’t seem to have the same impact in the story.
Comedy/Romance – The comedy in the film isn’t that strong, while the romance is more of a true reflection of how love can work, with the ups and downs.
Settings – The film uses the settings to show us the everyday life, we don’t get any icon locations for the couple, just showing what could be for them.
Scene of the Movie – The first meeting.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Just turning to drugs to solve the problems.
Final Thoughts – This is an interesting look at how a relationship happening around a new cancer diagnosis, could bring out the best and worst in people, with strong performances, even if the story become more predictable.
Overall: By the Book.
