So cold.
A woman is released from prison after she tried to kill her boyfriend. Her former boyfriend survived the knife attack, and now the woman has met a man whom she married. However, she can’t get over her former boyfriend, and then she meets a woman who has a connection to him, complicating things further. This will turn into chaos, and the question is: who will be safe, and will anybody be killed?
“After the Fever” is a slow-burning movie with good acting, especially from Ai Hashimoto. She walks around with a dead face and a dead stare, the stare of death. Even though she has married a man she met by coincidence, she can’t get over her former boyfriend and still sees a psychiatrist. During these sessions, we understand that the woman is still a loose cannon.
You never feel that the protagonist and the man she has met belong together since the woman appears dead inside and out. She seems to have nothing left to offer, and the only thing that can release her is facing her past, which means finding her former boyfriend and confronting him. But he is not easy to find.
I found the story interesting, and the movie has an unsettling atmosphere. In the last 25 minutes, it gets dark, and I can’t say that I liked the outcome for one of the characters. That outcome felt unnecessary, and it is confirmed when the movie chickens out with two of the characters who have a plan. If the movie had done its job and finished what it started, I could have accepted the outcome for the mentioned character.
I also wanted another couple who meets towards the end of the movie to face the same destiny. But then the movie chickens out, and I have to say that I hate the ending since it doesn’t feel fair when someone is waiting for an important person who should take care of him. This was not the right solution!
“After the Fever” is a movie about love, obsession, and depression. It’s not a movie for everyone, so if you hate slow Japanese movies with a depressing atmosphere where you don’t feel that the characters belong together, then this isn’t the movie for you. It will also leave you without answering questions about some characters you met. That felt lazy, so there are not many consequences for the characters, it seems.
It’s a movie that will suck out your soul, but with the ending it offers, it doesn’t spit on your soul, so your soul will return to your body. That was my biggest disappointment with “After the Fever.” If you are going to finish something, do it, and don’t be a chicken.