Anchored by a
steely, low-pitched lead performance by Wes Bentley, After the Fall
tells the story of a seemingly typical family man coping with financial
hardship in the wake of the Great Recession. The film seems advertised as an
expose on the post-meltdown American economy and its debilitating effect on the
middle-class, but it never becomes that, thankfully. It remains a laser-focused
character study chronicling recently fired insurance agent Bill Scanlon’s
mounting desperation to maintain his lifestyle while keeping his predicament a
secret from his wife. The setting in a New Mexico suburb is ideal. The desert
frontier surroundings suggest the hopeful promise of a future where there is
room enough for everyone to succeed. The houses are all new and clean, waiting
for successful young families to occupy them. Soon, though, we learn that the
ripples from Wall Street’s collapse have even reached this far into the
American West. The houses are empty because the banks have foreclosed on them.
The swimming pools have been filled in with gravel because it’s too expensive
to maintain them. Bill is still reeling from being laid off from his job; it’s
obviously a foreign experience to him, not only baffling but humiliating.
Bill’s pent-up desperation leads him from petty schemes to bring in money to
serious crime, including armed robbery. What keeps everything so suspenseful is
the intense-eyed Bentley’s embodiment of repression; (in fact, the one scene
where he raises his voice in public feels almost out-of-place). Another actor
would not likely have been able to resist many obvious opportunities for
emotional fireworks. But by being so subdued, Bentley’s performance is that
much more unsettling. The anti-social Taxi Driver-like explosion never
materializes, and the film is effective and satisfying because of it.
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