Movie Review: “After Class(formerly titled,“Safe Spaces”)”
Dramedy has multiple layers of story lines, yet manages to work out
By Lisa D. DeNeal
Writer, director Daniel Schechter’s film, “After Class,” shows us what we already know. Life is messy and families can be messy, even at the worst of times.
‘After Class’ was well received and the official selection at numerous film festivals this year, including Tribeca, Rome, Fort Lauderdale, Traverse, Greenwich, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Boston and Nantucket.
“After Class” is about Josh Cohn (Justin Long), a young, male, New York City professor who currently manages his life between his job and spending hours at the hospital sitting at his maternal grandmother’s bedside. In between, he kind of has a relationship with a foreign woman who lives with him. He teaches creative writing and during one class, he conducts reviews of his students’ assignments. He finds that one student’s -Sarah - writing about a bad date lacking with excitement and coerces her in front of her classmates to give more detail. Sarah describes a sexual act that her date asks permission to do and she allows it. Josh is exuberant about her reveal, and that’s when things go wrong for him.
The college administrators confront Josh after another female student — Jennifer - reports him for ‘forcing’ Sarah to talk about a sexual act, thus making Jennifer feel uncomfortable and unsafe in his classroom. Josh can’t believe this is happening to him, and denies any wrongdoing. This accusation also threatens his position at the college, which isn’t full-time; it’s adjunct. It doesn’t help him when other classmates side with Jennifer and Sarah and when the word gets out verbally and via social media, it’s a storm, and there’s no such thing as a good storm.
Josh has to deal with this and try to be there for his grandmother and family. He rotates hospital bedside sitting grandma with his older siblings, Jackie Cohn (Kate Berlant) and David Cohn (Michael Godere), who also have their own issues, yet Josh seems thrown into it. Jackie is a pill-popping podcast host with relationship problems, and David is perceived as the perfect family man with a solid career.
Their parents, Diane Cohn (Fran Drescher) and Jeff Cohn (Richard Schiff) are divorced and dealing with their messes respectively. Diane is her mother’s primary caregiver, so it’s obvious she’s stressed, angry and afraid. She’s already dividing her mother’s things among relatives while her mother’s still alive, which perplexes Josh. Jeff is remarried to a woman who is not at all liked by the siblings and the feeling is mutual and shared with Jeff and the woman’s young son.
Josh and what becomes of his life, remains the center theme in “After Class” due to him being in a bind. Because of this, he depends on his family for financial support while trying to remain emotionally supportive to the family. He’s messy, though. Having a tug-of-war with doing the right thing as far as the college drama, and being a grown-up.
The bright spots in “After Class,” in my opinion, are the scenes involving the grandmother, Agatha Held, played by veteran actress Lynn Cohen (HBO’s “Sex and the City” and “Sex and the City” motion picture, and, “The Hunger Games”). Agatha knows her fate. While she doesn’t want to be a bother to her daughter and family, she enjoys the attention. She’s cute and lovable like a grandmother should be.
Fran Drescher’s portrayal of a daughter sacrificing her sanity and emotions to make her mother comfortable is relatable to adult children of elderly parents. Diane can only do so much, knowing that eventually, she did her best. Drescher was a great actress before being a household name as Miss Fine in, “The Nanny” and remains great in this role.
Richard Schiff (‘The Good Doctor’) portrayal of the Cohn siblings’ dad is familiar with people. Jeff’s long moved on, but seems unhappy. He is Josh’s wallet when Diane doesn’t have time — and possibly, the money — to loan to Josh.
I wanted to know more about Jackie’s situation with her male friend and the reason behind her taking pills. Brother David seems to be the more responsible sibling but he and his family have had to deal with mess because of Josh.
Shot in in 2018, writer and director Daniel Schechter, said in a statement that ‘After Class’ is set in 2016, pre- #MeToo movement and before Donald Trump’s presidential election win. The movie shows that political incorrectness is long a thing of the past, yet we still have to decide what is or isn’t considered triggering.
It is also a semi-biographical movie, as Schechter’s dedicated the film to all four of his grandparents. He is also a former teacher who has learned how to talk and connect with students.
I place ‘After Class’ as more drama than comedy. There’s definitely a post-film conversation vibe with it. The cast is strong and the flow of the film is erratic at times, but I knew what they were saying.
‘After Class’ is now playing in select theaters across the U.S. including,Los Angeles, Orlando, Cleveland, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, and is available on VOD.
View the trailer, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbkEsNyP19g&feature=youtu.be
Rating: Three stars.
‘After Class’ is written and directed by Daniel Schechter. Produced by Jordan Kessler, Courtenay Johnson and Lawrence Greenberg.
Produced by Cojo Pictures. Distributed by Gravitas Ventures.
Movie length: 93 minutes.
Some strong language.
