Review of Afterschool (2009) by Mike M — 19 Jan 2011

Some of "Afterschool" is rather naive or on-the-nose: it's maybe a bit much Rob should be shown procrastinating over his set text of "Hamlet", or that he should have a counsellor named Mr.

Virgil to guide him along these corridors... Yet Campos makes shrewd, intelligent choices in almost every other department, from the sound design locking you inside his protagonist's head to the unusually telling posters hanging from his walls; he also has a knack for eliciting unadorned performances from his leads, and the heavy-lidded Miller is entirely convincing as a conflicted (not to mention difficult and uningratiating) young man.

There's room for debate here, as there almost always is whenever anyone broaches the relationship between images consumed and actions taken - it's probably why Campos leaves the final moments so ambiguous.

For the most part, though, "Afterschool"'s gaze is searching, tough and unyielding: as a show-and-tell on the state of the American nation's youth, it offers more of note than any half-dozen of the year's mainstream teenpics.