REVIEW #136 Afterlife (2019-2021)

Afterlife is a comedy drama written by Ricky Gervais. It follows Tony a man who is struggling with depression after the death of his wife. The series uses cynical humour to highlight the grieving process as Tony decides he wants to live long enough to punish the world. 

CAST & THE ACTING 

Ricky Gervais leads the cast as Tony and it’s definitely one of his best roles to date. The humour never fails to land but his dramatic acting also creates such a strong emotional connection to the audience. His performance can really make you laugh out loud and cry in the same episode. The rest of the cast is made up of other English comedians and actors and they all bring something unique to the story. Gervais recently said in an interview that he wrote the characters knowing which actors would play them and that’s really clear once you watch Afterlife because it’s like they were born to play these characters. So I was really impressed with the casting here.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

The storyline takes an extremely emotional and dark subject of grief and gives it a comedic twist. It sums up Gervais as a comedian who has often said if we can’t joke about the bad things in life then we are truly lost. Tony is a very cynical character who tells it how it is, especially as he now believes he has nothing to lose. This is the main source of the humour but what’s great about the storyline is how emotional it can be too. Having the video logs from Tony’s late wife is so effective at doing just that, creating an emotional response from the audience. I haven’t gone through an experience like that but I would imagine that those who have could really relate to Tony and the feelings he has as he tries to continue living life. The character development is also really strong, it contributes to creating some really good character relationships. Obviously Tony and his dog are my favourite! So it’s a very simple storyline but an effective one. 

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

There isn’t much to talk about with this category, the cinematography is really basic and there isn’t any special effects. You won’t see beautiful visuals or intricate camerawork and to be honest I didn’t expect that. I guess keeping it simple does make it have a strong sense of realism, almost like they are just filming every day people, going about their lives. 

OVERALL (8.5/10)

Ricky Gervais has created a beautiful series that connects with the audience through humour and emotion. The cast couldn’t be any more of a perfect match to their characters and there is a good amount of character exploration that’ll have you picking a new favourite character in every season. The storyline is simple but very effective, handling the grieving process so well! The cinematography isn’t worth really commenting on so perhaps that’s the area where it could improve but it really isn’t needed. I do think it was the right decision to end it at season 3 as you could see the quality steadily declining and Gervais himself said if he continued, that would be inevitable. I would definitely recommend watching it, there aren’t many episodes in each season and they’re short too, so easily digestible for any type of audience. 

Thanks for reading.

Callan