Watch for the jokes, remember it for the heartbreaking emotions
I wrote recently about how Netflix can be a platform for more grounded storytelling. No one truly knows how Netflix goes about making all of its content, how much input they have or don’t have.
After Life follows the story of Tony (Ricky Gervais) whose wife has recently died after a battle with cancer. Tony, who was once happy and loving the world, finds himself not seeing the point of being alive and in the world any more now that the one thing that made him happy is gone. The series follows Tony’s journey to see whether he can become happy again and lose his new devil-may-care attitude.
I can easily say that After Life is easy viewing, and that isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s a series which is short, yet sweet, and you can easily watch in a whole evening, thanks to the magic that is Netflix. Where After Life succeeds is in this area as you care for Tony as much as the people around him do. The character’s around him, he works for the local newspaper and his editor is his wife’s brother, care for him to the very edge of their ability too. You end up watching Tony unravel and move through layers of emotional baggage and whilst there are many jokes you can’t help but see the series as being certainly more of an emotional dramedy then simply just your average drama-comedy.
The advantage that After Life has is that all the episodes will be out at once. If this were just on regular TV then I don’t think you’d be able to connect to Tony as well as you should do. I watched the whole series in one morning and it was a fantastic way to start my day. It’s a weird thing to say but it’s a bit of a short but slow but sweet show and tuning in every week is something I can’t imagine people doing. After Life is now in my mind a prime example of why streaming services like Netflix exist. Gervais is able to tell what feels like a more personal story without the worry of getting viewers to watch every week. Instead the focus is on creating a well created character and story with every joke landing perfectly.
After Life makes jokes about material that other comedy shows, and especially TV channels, I feel won’t dare touch. Joking about suicide, death, depression and more is usually a no go for TV shows but Gervais pushes through all of that to create a show that feels original and pure. Tony telling people to f**k off feels realistic and as anyone who has suffered depression in their life, myself included, you know that sometimes you do just want to tell people to f**k off.
I make it sound like the show is purely just emotions and obviously that is the main story of the show. The comedy still manages to find a way to shine through so if you’re in it just for the laughs then you’ll be pleased as well. If you want to watch a show that will fill you with Gervais’ style of comedy and hit you with emotions at the same time then After Life is the show for you. It’s short, sweet, emotional, hilarious and odd all at once and is definitely Ricky Gervais at his best on an emotional unfiltered journey.