The Aftermath
4 stars
Director: James Kent
Stars: Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgård, Jason Clarke, Alexander Scheer
Duration: 108 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd

After her acclaimed performance as Colette, Keira Knightley is back on the big screen as Rachael Morgan in The Aftermath. Set in post-war Germany, Rachael moves to the ruined city of Hamburg in 1946 to be reunited with her husband Colonel Lewis Morgan (Jason Clarke), a British colonel charged with rebuilding the  shattered city.

As Rachael sets about to see her new home, hoping to rekindle her marriage, she is astonished to learn that Lewis has invited the previous owners of the house to remain there – a German widower Stephan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgård) and his troubled daughter Freda (Flora Thiemann). Fully resentful of having to share a home with people she perceives as the enemy, the circumstances born of enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal.

The film is based on the bestselling novel by the same name by author Rhidian Brook. The fascinating story was inspired by his own grandfather’s experience. Colonel Walter Brook was one of the English officers sent to Germany at the end of the war to get the devastated country back on its feet after years of death and destruction. Appointed governor of a district near Hamburg, Colonel Brook, requisitioned a house for his family and indeed chose not to have its German owners evicted. This arrangement – which found two families who until very recently had been enemies living under the same roof – lasted five years.

Colonel Brook was the inspiration for Clarke’s character, the enlightened and altruistic army officer who allows Lubert to continue living is his own house. “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,” muses Brook.

The idea of punishing Germany was off the agenda

Brook originally pitched the story to Scott Free, the film production company founded by brothers Ridley and Tony Scott in 2010. Scott Free executive and producer Jack Arbuthnott took the story to Ridley Scott – only to discover that the director actually lived in Hamburg at the time the story was set.

 “It completely recalled my childhood,” says Scott of the project. “In 1947 – I was 10 at the time, my father was important in the army – we lived in Frankfurt, then in Hamburg. My house in Frankfurt, in fact, was the house of a German officer. My mother was very friendly towards his wife who would come once a month to  check that we were looking  after the house. So, it was very similar, except my mother  didn’t have an affair with the  German housekeeper!”

As Brook began working on the script, he was offered a contract by Penguin Books to tell the story in novel form, leading the book to be released to acclaim in 2013. Although the author remained involved in developing the film and revising the script, screenwriters Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse joined the team to shape the screenplay, while James Kent, a veteran of film, television, and documentaries was brought on to direct.

The focal point of the story is a love triangle that evolves as Rachael’s strained marriage to Lewis worsens and her initial wariness towards Lubert dissolves. The sensitivity and nuance with which the relationships were drawn appealed to Kent. 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,” adds Kent.

An avid student of history, Kent was struck not just by the complexity of the characters and the emotional arc of the story but also by the singular backdrop that serves as the setting for the film. “It’s an extraordinary moment – the world’s been absolutely laid flat in a way it never had before,” he says. “The British in particular felt very strongly that we shouldn’t repeat what happened at the end of World War I, so the idea of punishing Germany was off the agenda. For me, that makes it an astonishingly generous, positive, and far-sighted moment in British history. Of course, the European Union came out of this moment, and it felt to me like this was something that spoke to us very directly now.”

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