After Love

Mary lives in Dover, in the south of England. Years ago she married a Pakistani ferry captain and converted to Islam; she has lived inside that life ever since. Her husband dies suddenly. A day after the burial she finds something among his things: he had another life across the Channel in Calais. She takes the ferry and goes to the address. She does not tell the woman who opens the door who she is; she is taken for a cleaner and lets it stand. Aleem Khan writes and directs. Joanna Scanlan plays Mary, with Nathalie Richard and Talid Ariss in the cast. Joanna Scanlan won the BAFTA for best actress for the part. The performance is almost entirely silent; what the character thinks is never said. The decision at the centre is that Mary does not explain herself at once. She stays in the house, watches the other woman and her son, and holds somewhere between anger and curiosity. What interests the film is belonging. Mary was born English and became Muslim, and was never fully accepted on either side; her husband's second life opens that uncertainty further. The chalk cliffs of Dover are used as an image inside the narrative and collapse outright in one scene. It is Aleem Khan's first feature and the screenplay draws on his own family's past. Who it is for: viewers who like British independent drama and quiet, performance driven films. Who it is not for: the pace is very slow, little happens, and the narrative never breaks open.