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.
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08/21/09
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Afterschool (2009)
77
%
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:30
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Antonio Campos'Afterschool is an intelligent, ambitious debut that boasts strong performances and plenty of ideas.
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... [More]
Starring: Ezra Miller, Jeremy White, Emory Cohen, Michael Stuhlbarg
Director: Antonio Campos
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Reviews for Afterschool
Gripped with an unnerving iciness, Afterschool has style and smarts, but Campos never really manages to slice cleanly into his mega-relevant themes of voyeurism and violence, isolation and info-culture.
08/21/09
Afterschool does feel like an interesting play on the idea of voluntary surveillance, but there’s no real emotional crescendo, no catharsis and no satisfying conclusion to Robert’s angst, which is only ever skirted around.
08/21/09
An arty drama that's just a little too pretentious.
08/21/09
A slow and suffocating experience. Not that this is a criticism, because it's exactly the feeling director Antonio Campos has tried to create.
08/21/09
Compelling performances and some stand-out scenes but this lacks the cohesive language of Elephant, for example.
08/21/09
Originality is perhaps the major missing component, but this still stacks up as a nifty debut with ideas and ambition to spare.
08/21/09
This is a major debut. A dystopic vision, yes; but in comparison with the usual school high-jinks from US cinema - fiercely fresh and corrosively memorable.
08/21/09
The writer-director Antonio Campos uses his camera in catatonically slow movements, to varying effect: sometimes it feels probing, at others it looks like so much film school self-indulgence.
08/21/09
This is certainly an original work, but not entirely successful in saying anything new about the way we watch “reality” today at second hand.
08/21/09
The excellent script touches fascinating themes (notably the abject hypocrisy of the school staff) and also manages to convey a moment of pure emotional devastation more acutely than any number of Hollywood teen flicks.
08/21/09
This drama shows the growing skill of 25-year-old writer-director-editor Campos. It's also packed with important themes that are addressed both artfully and hauntingly.
08/20/09
It's sex, lies and videotape in a privileged high school as Antonio Campos casts a cold eye over the adolescent state of postmodernity.
08/18/09
The fact that this is a film of few words only adds to its hypnotic, relentless pull.
03/12/09
A morbidly fascinating prep school tragedy which also is a stylistically uncompromisingly vision of hypocritical America.
10/18/08
Unsettles without illuminating, marred by narcotic pacing and a blank lead performance.
10/18/08
[Director] Campos certainly demands your attention, and has it for most of the film.
09/30/08
Once made ... Afterschool proceeds to regurgitate its thesis with all the grace of a lumberjack leveling a redwood.
09/29/08
This ain't Elephant, even if it looks like one.
09/29/08
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