While she is initially suspicious and distrustful of the German architect, Stephan Lubert, (Alexander Skarsgård) whom she is forced to cohabit with, she eventually finds in him a kindred spirit and one she can turn to for solace and support.
However, her betrayal soon becomes apparent as even her emotionally distant husband begins to suspect that something is amiss.
The movie is based on Rhidian Brook’s best-selling novel of the same name, that he was inspired to write after learning of his grandfather in post-war Germany, chose to share his quarters with its German residents instead of evicting them.
Brook says, “Although the events depicted in The Aftermath are of my own making, this story could not have been written without my grandfather’s unique act of kindness.”
The story soon caught the eye of director James Kent (Testament of Youth) who found the sensitivity and nuance with which the love triangle was drawn enthralling.
“It’s about a bereaved woman who has lost her child during the war,” Kent says.
“It’s a universal story of how you repair yourself and move on in life. It’s got a very redemptive message which was very important to me.”
Upon hearing of the opportunity, Academy Award-nominee Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Imitation Game) swiftly jumped aboard the project to play Rachel.
“In drama, you would normally deal with the bit that leads up to the dramatic moment – in this case the death of their son,” Knightley says of the movie.
“But this film asks, what happens after that? How as a couple do you come out of something that is so unimaginably horrific? How do you rebuild a relationship? I thought it was all something that I’d never explored before.”
With regard to her character, Knightley states that the course Rachel and Stephan’s relationship takes is inevitable due to the personal tragedy they have in common.
“He’s somebody who understands what she’s going through and will confront it, as opposed to her husband, whose way of dealing with his grief is simply not talk about it, to shut down and not in any way give her the support that she needs.”
“That pushes her into finding solace somewhere else.”
Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) had this to say about his character: “At a certain point, he feels like he’s going to lose his wife if he doesn’t change, if he doesn’t do something, but that comes too late. It’s a beautiful meditation on love and on being human.”
The Australian actor was roped in for the project after his previous experience working together with Knightley on 2015’s Everest.
Here, he plays an English colonel responsible for the reconstruction of the devastated Hamburg, whose devotion to duty leaves him with little time to help his wife bear their mutual loss.
Clarke describes Lewis as a man who is ironically more sympathetic to the plight of those in war-torn Europe rather than to his wife’s distress.
Because of his lack of self-awareness, he is fated to have his role as a romantic partner usurped by a more understanding Lubert.
Skarsgård (Big Little Lies) says Lubert is sophisticated, intelligent and educated but also troubled; his daughter blames him for the death of her mother and has thus grown distant from him.
The setting also greatly impressed Skarsgård who says, “It shows the horrors of war on both sides. It’s not clearly cut, and it’s not about winners and losers. It felt like a very different insight into the post-Second World War period.”
The supporting cast include Freda (Flore Thiemann), Albert (Janik Schumann), Susan Burnam (Kate Phillips) and Keith Burnam (Martin Compston).
The movie, distributed by 20th Century Fox, is currently being screened at GSC International Screens located at GSC Mid Valley, GSC Pavilion KL and GSC 1 Utama.