Staggeringly confident and powerful: After Love reviewed

As there are no stand-out films this week aside from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile — is that the one where they all did it? Or is that the train one? — I thought I’d alert you to a film that may have slipped under your radar: After Love. It was released last year. It’s a small film, tiny. I don’t know what the budget was but it wasn’t $90 million. Yet it’s already won many awards, rightly, and has just been nominated for three Baftas and is staggeringly confident and powerful. I guess we’ll now never know who did it on that boat. Unless they all did it?

This is a first feature from English-Pakistani filmmaker Aleem Khan. It’s a beautifully restrained yet devastating exploration of love, loss, grief and identity wrapped up in a story that’s not just gripping but also — prepare yourself for a shock: ready? — wholly original.