Neil BakerAfter Love arrives in UK and Irish cinemas on 4th June.
The past few years have seen an explosion of exciting British directors take to the screen, from Rose Glass to Henry Blake. With his debut feature, After Love, director Aleem Khan joins that fraternity of new and exciting talent with a delicate yet striking exploration of love, secrecy, religion, belonging and loss.
As the rain pours down, Mary Hussain (Joanna Scanlan) and her husband Ahmed arrive home, their arms cradled with food containers. They shake off the rain, and Mary makes them both a well-earned mug of tea. As she puts the kettle on, Ahmed walks into the lounge and sinks into his favourite armchair, but as Mary walks in, tea in hand, she finds Ahmed silent and unresponsive. Mary frantically tries to wake him, but Ahmed is dead, and her life will never be the same again. Director Aleem Khan’s stunning exploration of love, lies and loss is wrapped in themes of religion, intersectionality, individualism, partnership and community belonging and held aloft by Joanna Scanlan’s stunning central performance.
Mary and Ahmed’s marriage had survived the discrimination faced by many of those who chose a multicultural relationship in 70s and 80s Britain, with their teenage love blossoming into a marriage where Mary converted to Islam as they built a new life in Dover, just a stone’s throw away from Ahmed’s job as a ferry captain. But as Mary goes through Ahmed’s belongings, she finds a small card hidden in his wallet with details of a mysterious woman called Genevieve (Nathalie Richard) living in Calais. To add to the mystery, Mary also discovers a string of messages on Ahmed’s phone from Genevieve, and suddenly, it becomes clear that Ahmed wasn’t truthful or possibly even faithful during their long marriage. Therefore, Mary decides to travel to Calais to meet the other woman, but what she finds will change her life and memories forever.
