“When my days are over will this soul of mine actually leave this body?… Or is the funeral home guy plotting on me?”
Synopsis: After a horrific car accident, Anna (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find the local funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) preparing her body for her funeral. Confused, terrified and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesn’t believe she’s dead, despite the funeral directors reassurances that she is merely in transition to the afterlife. Eliot convinces her he has the ability to communicate with the dead and is the only one who can help her. Trapped inside the funeral home, with nobody to turn to except Eliot, Anna is forced to face her deepest fears and accept her own death. But Anna’s grief-stricken boyfriend Paul (Justin Long) still can’t shake the nagging suspicion that Eliot isn’t what he appears to be. As the funeral nears, Paul gets closer to unlocking the disturbing truth, but it could be too late; Anna may have already begun to cross over to the other side.
Hard to believe that After.Life ended up the way it did. What seemed like a strong cast of actors turned into a devastating upset. Nobody benefits from watching this film except maybe adolescent males. The combo of being naked and Christina Ricci seem to go hand in hand these days. Someone loves to add a few more camera minutes of her bare body to each new film she stars in. No complaints from the adolescent male in me but the lady of the flesh was the innocent little girl from Casper. Wardrobe must have been simple. With all the extra time they still went out and cast the Mac computer guy as her boyfriend. I must admit his acting has improved (a smidge) since his eye-grabbing performance in Jeepers Creepers but the lad’s talents are much better suited to selling computers.
If there was one actor that shone slightly brighter than the many dull sparkles in After.Life it would be Mr. Unstoppable, Liam Neeson. As a deeply disturbed funeral director with his own sick motives, he weaves thoughts of death into the body of his work. He never once dropped the calm, cool and collected persona of a man that stitches up dead carcasses for a living. After seeing him play the desperate father in Taken, I did not enjoy watching him weasel his way through 90-plus minutes of fraudulent acting hoping to catch another glimpse of Ricci in the nude.
Honestly, if you plan on going to see this film to get scared you will be deeply disappointed. If they are showing this film in the afterlife, I’m going to have to demand an express ticket to hell.
Rating: 
I love Justin Long. He had a pretty lovely scene in Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I also adored him in Accepted. He was sadly pretty sadly bad in this film though. ):
I don't quite understand your comment about Liam Neeson and I think you might spoil the film for others with that description of him.
I would definitely not see this film ever again– in fact I hated it with all my heart when I left my seat, but I sort of developed an appreciation of how different it is.
The directors are pretty cynical and I admire their incredibly cynical style of direction.
The movie after.life was so lame. I hated the ending. Insulting to the audience for thinking we were dumb enough to believe it was a mystery, when it was bad writing. Obviously, Anna was alive and not dead (or at least bad writing that couldn’t account for her being dead, like the breathing, Liam giving shots to sedate her, etc.,). That wasn’t a mystery. They threw in the twist at the end when the boyfriend died in the car accident. That part made it a mystery to beg the question, hmmm., well was Anna actually dead? No, she was alive, but it was just bad writing trying to coerce a confusion in the audience with Liam’s reactions and unwillingness entertain the doubters.
Anyway, dumb ending. Dumb movie. Dumb writing. Liam, Ricci, and Long were and are all good actors, but this movie just dropped their ratings IMO in terms of low quality movies. Two thumbs down for this MOVIE itself.
Gee thanks for spoiling it for me Kevin….jerk! maybe put *SPOLIER in your title so i can skip before reading
The movie and all its parts were symbolic. It is the naive audience who just cares about the plot and happy ending! The theme of this movie was to show us if we lose our hope, and if we have a dumb monotonous life, that will be nothing any different from death! This way, even if we have blood running inside us, even if our sigh makes a sign on the mirror, as somebody just plays the role of the one in charge of our funeral, we would lie still in front of him to be slaughtered. This is our belief in life which keeps us alive not the world around us.
The moment you doubt your existence, you will be a dead walking man with no future!
And one final point about the title of the movie:
AFTER life does not mean when you are dead but it means to be AFTER life or to look for life, the life which the girl lacked as a live person!
SPOILER…. I absolutley hated the ending 100%. 9 out of 10 people are not living life to the fullest. But just because your taking life for granted does not give anyone a right to decide if you live or die. Movie would have been better if A. She was actually dead… or B. The boyfriend dug her up found her dead but saw the coffin was all scratched up and eliot goes to jail… or C. Boyfriend digs up girl she’s alive and again eliot goes to jail. And little boy grows up to take over eliots role.