NAPLES INTERNATIONAL FF REVIEW: Stephen Kunken and Jack Lewars’ BEFORE/DURING/AFTER delves into the woman’s perspective post-divorce
Before/During/After will undoubtedly draw unfair comparisons to 2019’s Marriage Story. Both films are character studies revolving around the painful, slow death of a failing couple and the questions raised in the process of divorce. Both films utilize a non-linear narrative and editing techniques to draw parallels and evoke irony. What separates Before/During After is the lack of a dual narrative. This is not a he-said-she-said, this is a she-said, a story emphasizing a woman’s voice as she navigates the intimidating truth of her near future, a future without her husband of fifteen years.
Written by and starring actress Finnerty Steeves as Jennie, the film is determined to tell her character’s side of the story, as the voice of husband David (Jeremy Davidson) is more or less muted. Much like most narrative films about divorce, this one involves an affair. Between Jennie’s surprise reversal on whether she wants to have kids and David’s preoccupation with and passion for sailing his boat around the coast, their relationship was doomed from the start. They had ten to fifteen good years before the wheels fell off, but those wheels had a clear shelf life. Directed by Jack Lewars and Stephen Kunken, their film has a keen eye for detailing the various feelings that bubble to the surface when a schism forms, and when serendipity is no longer on their side.
Refreshingly, also unlike Marriage Story and more, Steeves and co. have jettisoned the long drawn-out legal battle that accompanies so many divorce narratives. Without any kids or much property to speak of, Jennie and David’s separation is relatively simple. Despite pushing forty, their lives resemble that of a couple in their twenties more than two people approaching middle age. Though the film occasionally stumbles in its attempts to convey the lessons of divorce, there is a single major exception in the form of “what next?”
In some ways recalling the filmography of Nancy Meyers, there’s a strong emphasis on what a woman does with herself, with her life, in the wake of her marriage ending. What does a person do with themselves when their relationship and their husband was so integral to their identity? Jennie is a barely working actress, running from audition to audition and often struggling to perform due to the emotional perils in her personal life. Accepting the finality of divorce eventually gives her the opportunity to remake herself and her life in a new image.
The most powerful scene comes when Jennie and her mother (Kristine Sutherland) are having a heart-to-heart, and despite such a happy, contented marriage, her mother admits that she has previously wondered what kind of person she would have become were it not for Jennie’s father. When two people get married and the marriage works, there’s a tendency to cast aside your individualism in favor of the identity you share with that other person. Conscious or subconscious, it’s a sacrifice made in the name of union. Unlike her mother, Jennie is given the chance to find out who she would have become.
Because of such potent themes and some carefully calibrated performances from a strong supporting cast (Deborah Rush, Richard Masur, John Ellison Clark, Marin Hinkle), Before/During/After is a worthwhile endeavor for anyone who is married, has been married, or is thinking about marriage. In other words, it’s a film for everyone.
