23-year-old Elliot (Jeremy Allen White) is the stereotypical millennial.
Holding a part-time job with no aspirations, he parties every night with his roommate and best friend Nico (DeRon Horton), using the power of allusion to help him get laid. Meanwhile, Mia (Maika Monroe) is a young professional in a job she hates, bored by the monotony of life. So begins directors Hannah Marks and Joey Power’s intelligent romance After Everything, which lets the audience live through Elliot and Mia’s tender relationship while showing how disease intensifies love by introducing dependency and high-stake emotional investment in the beginning stages.
After a rather painful one-night stand, Elliot continues to experience a strange pain in his groin, which he assumes is an STD. His doctor finds a tumor on his pelvic bone, biopsies it, and diagnoses Elliot with a rare form of cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. Within the same week, he meets Mia while waiting for a subway train, recognizing her as a regular customer at his deli, and asks for her number without blinking. Soon, the two are diving head first into a passionate relationship due to the stakes of Elliot’s prognosis. His illness quickly becomes the glue binding their relationship together, as Mia becomes Elliot’s support system as he undergoes physically and emotionally debilitating chemotherapy treatments. She begins to find purpose, meaning, and a sense of fulfillment as she helps to care for Elliot, depending on him to fill the voids in her life. Elliot is just as guilty as he continues to act on his natural impulsive behavior by proposing to Mia in the park after he learns that the chemo is not working and he will have to undergo surgery, which has a 20% success rate. After the surgery is successful, the couple seems to be happy and enjoying their wedded bliss. Soon after the “honeymoon” stage of their relationship has ended, they realize that they don’t really know each other and what they believed to be deep, true love begins to fall apart.
Marks and Power do an excellent job at observing that in a crisis, people take on accidental significance. Any other time, it wouldn’t mean much if Elliot imagined the cute girl he just met in her underwear. But when this takes place in a sperm bank because the number of chemo rounds he must take may have the side effect of infertility, suddenly it seems as if she is “The One”. This launches Elliot into a spiral that only Mia can help him through. They cross off items on his bucket list, which includes a hilarious scene with them taking ecstasy (but Mia makes sure to Google “What happens when you take MDMA and have cancer?”), and only continues to heighten their dependency on one another and perpetuate the misconception that they are destined to be together forever because they went through this together.
Jeremy Allen White and Maika Monroe have the kind of chemistry that filmmakers hope to achieve in romantic comedies, and will have audiences championing this star-crossed pairing.
Jeremy Allen White and Maika Monroe find the pathos and humor in every scene. White gives us a man who is detached due to fear of death rather than just being underdeveloped. White makes Elliot a believable 23-year-old- someone who often doesn’t know what he wants beyond a good time but he knows he’s found something special. Monroe’s Mia is lost and alone in a brand new city and grasps at any connection to make this place her home. She is loving and caring through her scenes with White which are conveyed through her choice of tone and dynamic. We see her strong and forceful, yet there is clear evidence of her motivation: unyielding love and loyalty to the man she loves. We experience her blind devotion to her boyfriend as she pours through endless articles to gain more knowledge, and doesn’t let doctors push her around just because she’s lacking the “Doctor” title. Monroe gives Mia the perfect arc to become the strong, independent woman by the end of the film. White and Monroe have the kind of chemistry that filmmakers hope to achieve in romantic comedies, and will have audiences championing this star-crossed pairing.
After Everything is extremely impressive from start to finish. It taps into universal themes of difficulties sustaining relationships at any age. We see how people can sabotage their future in an instant when the foundation isn’t given enough time to set. The cast gives remarkable performances that add dimension no matter the screen time. The writer/directors expertly craft a story that shows the reality of a fast-paced, high-intensity love and balance that with comedy that adds to the story, not detracts. If you are looking for a film that echoes today’s dating climate, pokes fun at the Millennial/Gen Z dating rituals, and leaves you feeling more whole and alive by the end credits, then you must go see After Everything.
95 minutes. ‘After Everything’ is not yet rated. Opens Friday, October 12th at Vintage Los Feliz Theatre
