Review of Dead Like Me: Life After Death (2009) by Kylie P — 25 Aug 2010

This coda film, Dead Like Me: Life After Death, was ultimately underwhelming in so many ways. While the Dead Like Me series finale endeavored to provide a lovely open-ended conclusion, implying a future and healing for all of the characters the viewer comes to know, prior to the show's cancellation, this film tends to downplay much of that poetic aftertaste. The film is initially spoiled by exposition attempting to introduce the unfamiliar viewer with the premise of the show. The replacement actress for Laura Harris (who was, at the time, attached to the TV show Women's Murder Club) was an abysmal substitute, capturing none of the precocious charm of her predecessor and, instead, making Daisy thoroughly vapid and unlikable. And Henry Ian Cusick's one-note character and subsequent performance was nothing to write home about.

The only redeeming feature of this film was the scenes between George and Reggie, something the viewer (or, at least, this viewer) might have longed for during the series' original run. While the sisters were distant and never understood each other during George's life, the perspective of death and ensuing grief makes for some touching moments of fantasy in wish fulfillment between the two characters, which were also played delicately and in a heartwarming way by Muth and Phillip. This element and the ending implying a new future for George may be the only reasons to watch this afterthought of a film.

Otherwise, to view Life After Death ultimately, sort of, undermines some of the magic of the series because so many key ingredients are gone, from the restaurant to Rube to the original Daisy. There was a magic in the chemistry of the original ingredients that made it work, and this attempt at re-creation was almost blasphemous in the way it so spectacularly failed.