AFTERPARTY REVIEW MOVIE

Making every character tackle a different genre is a clever challenge of a premise, especially as Miller gets more specific with his directing.

To illustrate her inner confusion, she tells Danner her story by animating it into a cartoon, which fits Zoë’s background as an artist, makes her a fuller person instead of some romantic archetype, and gives Chao more room to show off the breadth of her comedic charm. In one episode that proves both narratively important and creatively ambitious, Aniq and Brett’s love interest Zoë (Zoë Chao) directly addresses the fact that her character’s been something of a cipher by admitting that she’s been having her own identity crisis. His rival Brett (Ike Barinholtz) sees himself more as the ass-kicking star of an action comedy, while class president turned hot mess Chelsea (Ilana Glazer) feels stuck and paranoid in a straight up horror movie. (Miller’s longtime writing partner Phil Lord, with whom he worked on “Into the Spider-Verse,” “Clone High,” and more, executive produces here.) Determined former nerd Aniq (Sam Richardson), for example, remembers the night through a rose-colored romantic comedy lens that makes his every misstep still seem somewhat charming.

AFTERPARTY REVIEW MOVIE

The new Apple TV Plus comedy opens with Detective Danner ( Tiffany Haddish) telling a room full of suspects that “we’re all stars of our own movie - the same thing could happen, but you see it in a different way.” In order to solve the murder of their obnoxious classmate Xavier (Dave Franco), she says, they’ll each have to tell her their version of how their ill-fated high school reunion went down - or, in an even more blunt line, that she wants to hear their “mind-movie.”Įach subsequent episode of “The Afterparty” features a different character retelling the same night in a way that lets creator and director Chris Miller take on a different genre each time. It’s available on AppleTV+, and I would recommend lending it some of your time if possible.“ The Afterparty” isn’t exactly subtle about its conceit. While I typically give some sort of story overview, I genuinely think that the show would be much more enjoyable if one was able to pick out all the direction, dialogue, prop, and other details they discovered on their own and have a unique experience coming to their own conclusion. While the way it’s presented varies, and some events change, it could get tiring watching several in succession. What doesn’t help is the fact that, barring the pilot, finale, and another exception, all episodes share the same structure.

Although the majority of the episodes are around thirty minutes, which I will say I am grateful for, since it allows me to more comfortably get through one before going to bed, they all share a similar structure. However, the show is not without its flaws.Īlthough I only watched one or two episodes a day, I can imagine that the show could be hard to binge. This process means that the audience can actually gain more out of an episode that was initially present. By allowing the audience to know how important every small detail is, they’ll build connections on their own. Such sense strongly supports the show, and, the genius part is, much of it is not actually present. It’s impossible to escape the sense that every detail, line of dialogue, and shot composition is intentional. The audience is expected to pick up on certain differences, and I will testify that once you notice one inconsistency, there’s very little stopping you from snowballing down the slippery slope. The reasons for this vary from a character’s narcissism changing what events they focus on to them viewing certain things as more or less important depending on their information to lying to clear them from suspicion. The way that the show utilizes this lies in the way that small details and dialogue change from story to story. However, while the editing changes, the same core events remain consistent throughout. However, they all vary in tone and style, all being reflective of the narrator’s personality. The majority of the episodes are composed primarily of one character’s retelling of the night.

Recently, on both a recommendation and a whim, I chose to begin watching the AppleTV+ show The Afterparty, a murder mystery involving the death of a celebrity at the afterparty for his high school’s 15 year reunion, and the subsequent police investigation. Every setting, object, and character has to be completely consistent, or at least consistent to a point where the audience can understand the majority of their actions. Although much of it goes over the head of the typical viewer, a high amount of intentionality goes into the process of creating a story.

Afterparty review