Before and After

Everyone has secrets.

Imagine yours are suddenly taken from the safety of your family and thrust out into the light for all to see. And everyone who sees has an opinion. It probably wouldn’t be very pretty.

"Your whole life can change in a second and you never even know when it’s coming..."

This is the problem facing Caroline and Ben Ryan (Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson) when their son’s girlfriend suddenly winds up dead with him missing. His car is in the garage, parked haphazardly, but he is nowhere to be found. In a panic, Ben strips bloody evidence from the trunk of the car and destroys it before the police can get at it. And so begins their real troubles...

When their 16 year-old son, Jacob, finally reappears he is arrested and charged with murder, but is released on bail. The townsfolk in this small middle-American town are both outraged and supportive as the Ryans learn who their true friends really are. Hiring themselves a gung-ho lawyer who starts stripping away their credibility and their moral choices to save their son, each member of the family must come to terms with what happened that fateful day and what they are prepared to live with as people.

This is an intelligently delivered film that explores the regions of murder mysteries that so rarely get tapped; that of the innocent-until-proven-guilty accused and their family. Seen through this family’s eyes, the confusion of the investigation and the harsh glare of public scrutiny becomes claustrophobic in its forcefulness. The oppression of the smallest everyday events as the Ryans must deal with a town full of friends instantly turned against them is weighty and well portrayed by Streep and Neeson. Their performances are the true backbone of this storyline and their very different personalities shed two unique lights on the proceedings. Streep plays a paediatrician who is calm and rational while Neeson is the fiery artist passionately defending his family from adversity from all sides. Both characters are introduced quickly in these necessary roles and have been handled very carefully by both actors and director to garner a truly emotional reaction from the audience that works to effect very well.

From what begins quite peacefully, this film enters the nightmare with the drama escalating from nothing to something very swiftly. It has been cleverly shot and well edited to build the tension, but also releases it at appropriate moments to truly put us in the picture and feel the events with the players. Although a rather plodding story at times, it does raise some pertinent questions regarding our own values and how far we as individuals would go for the truth, or for our loved ones.

Released in 1995, the picture quality here is truly superb. Nice clean edges and a sharp picture work well to bring every detail into the frame. Whilst only delivered in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio without enhancement, the picture still looks great nonetheless. The myriad snow shots in the film’s first half are always going to be a bit dangerous artefact wise, and unfortunately do let the transfer down a little as we see plenty of artefacts all too clearly. However, there isn’t anything too major, although there’s a hefty black vertical scratch around 19:51 that continues for several seconds.

Flesh tones are good (although Edward Furlong looks his usual pallid self) and the colour palette is rich without over saturation. The shadow detail runs back and forth throughout with some looking well detailed and others murky. There is also a bizarre and crappy something some techie has done to a kid’s mitten from 30:27-32. It looks like the colour has been specifically enhanced frame by frame without reference and looks bizarre to say the least. There are also some minor instances of aliasing, but it isn’t anything to write home about.

We only get English as a choice, but it is brought to us in Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds fantastic. It doesn’t really get much of a workout as this film is mostly visual or dialogue driven, but it does sport some nice rounded out moments. Dialogue is all clean and well spoken with no mumbles or mutterings. Sound effects are all fine throughout and balanced effectively with the rest of the soundtrack.

Musically, the film has been scored by Howard Shore and has been matched with good effect in building tension where appropriate, or inciting an emotional response when needed. This is one of this film’s secret weapons to tie it all together under one banner and it does so without making itself overly apparent.

They ran off to avoid being arrested I guess, 'cos we don’t got nothin’.

Although a fairly sleepy drama, this is still a film well worth the watching for the political, moral and ethical debates that it may arouse. Telling an unusual and fresh angle on the murder investigation theme, this film appears far more realistic than others of the genre, and we can accredit this to both clever direction and acting from our leads. It’s truly unfortunate there aren’t any extras to help sell this one, but I’m not so sure a series of cast interviews asking their thoughts about the issues raised would really be that great anyway. This is a relatively clean transfer from Buena Vista (as usual) and is a credit to the film for the most part. It has been shot well and looks beautiful set among the snow and such and would be a good film for the fans of either Streep or Neeson’s (or even Furlong’s) work.