Afterschool (2008)

76% of critics liked it
(41 reviews)
42% of users liked it
(941 ratings)

Violence and voyeurism lurk beneath the surface of life at an exclusive prep school in this independent drama. Robert (Ezra Miller) is a high school student who has made a hobby out of dulling his senses with violent pornography that he finds on the Internet. While Robert doesn't have many friends,… More Violence and voyeurism lurk beneath the surface of life at an exclusive prep school in this independent drama. Robert (Ezra Miller) is a high school student who has made a hobby out of dulling his senses with violent pornography that he finds on the Internet. While Robert doesn't have many friends, he does have a habit of documenting the habits of his classmates with a digital video camera, and he happens to be on hand when two girls from his class succumb to fatal drug overdoses. As the deaths leave the school's faculty at a lost for what to do and send many of the students into a state of depression and denial, Robert finds himself becoming even more alienated from the world around him. Afterschool was the first feature film from writer and director Antonio Campos, and was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" series at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 46 min.
Directed By: Antonio Campos
Written By: Antonio Campos
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: May 18, 2008 Wide
On DVD: Apr 1, 2010
Studio: IFC Films

Critic Reviews

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
It's both a supremely controlled exercise in form and tone and an intriguing exploration of the ways new technology intersects with age-old questions of dominance, control and individuality, particularly in the school setting.
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
Anthony Campos (who was 24 when he made this jolting pic) captures the numbing psychic scramble that just might cause the YouTube generation to go morally haywire. Or become filmmakers.
Kyle Smith, New York Post
Though thin on story, the film shows poise and vision, using bleak cinema-realite techniques with chilling effect. Campos promises to be heard from again.
Neil Genzlinger, New York Times
Those with the patience to wait out Mr. Campos's overindulgences will definitely leave Afterschool unnerved, which is probably exactly what he had in mind.
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Afterschool, the almost frighteningly accomplished first feature made by Antonio Campos when he was 24, is high school as horror show.
Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter
A morbidly fascinating prep school tragedy which also is a stylistically uncompromisingly vision of hypocritical America.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
The film examines such relevant issues as violence in school, voyeurism, and abuse.
Anton Bitel, Eye for Film
Both unassuming and uncomfortable, it is the sort of epoch-defining, Antonioni-style film (with a twist of Haneke) that is easily overlooked...
William Goss, Cinematical
When not downright creepy, it's quietly damning of an administration willing to point all the wrong fingers and play up all the wrong angles before brushing the matter aside.
Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat
This is a little movie well worth checking out. The performances are very natural, and the themes are enticingly provocative.
Kam Williams, NewsBlaze
Whatever happened to the analog days when kids found contentment by cramming phone booths, sitting on flagpoles or simply going steady?
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
Antonio Campos's character study of a prep school social misfit named Robert (Ezra Miller) is an intimate psychological journey into a coded juvenile mindset.
Cole Hornaday, Boxoffice Magazine
Perhaps it is the intent of Afterschool, to create such a distancing effect the viewer is forced to observe, perhaps even critique these young people's experience. If this is the case, Afterschool is one long period of detention.
Scott Tobias, AV Club
The passing of time and the evolution of technology may give it an expiration date, but more likely, Campos' film stands to be an essential document of what it was like to be a young person in the late '00s.
Brian Juergens, CampBlood.org
Deserves credit for managing to make prep school seem like the most hellish place on the planet, but is at some points hard to watch for all the wrong reasons.
Nicolas Rapold, Time Out New York
If you've ever balked at drifty solitude or video meta-hell in the films of Gus Van Sant or Michael Haneke, this pale imitation will drive you batty.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
An intelligent, often gripping, and intriguingly autobiographical drama of paranoia.
Rebecca Nicholson, Times [UK]
At heart it's another unpleasant existential crisis for another unpleasant schoolboy in another unpleasant American prep school.
Philip French, Observer [UK]
It's an intriguing scenario, but what makes the film special (if at times slightly trying) is that it's all artfully shot in an apparently artless manner.
Adam Woodward, Little White Lies
With a lingering and often awkward style, Afterschool is ambitious but ultimately lacklustre.

Read all 20 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

William D

Well that's 100 minutes I'll never get back. I tracked down "Afterschool" because it was produced by Sean Durkin, writer/director of the spine-tingling "Martha Marcy May Marlene." But, oh my God, "Afterschool" is nothing like "Martha… More
Well that's 100 minutes I'll never get back. I tracked down "Afterschool" because it was produced by Sean Durkin, writer/director of the spine-tingling "Martha Marcy May Marlene." But, oh my God, "Afterschool" is nothing like "Martha Marcy." My jaw hung open through most of "Martha" because it was so good. My mouth hung open through most of "Afterschool" because it was so bad. Writer/director Antonio Campos, in his feature-film debut, brings us a mind-numbingly boring and empty story about zombie-like teenagers in an elite boarding school. I appreciate that Campos and Durkin hired actual teenagers to play the teenage characters. This is a pleasure, as most often teenage characters are played by 25-year-olds pretending to be adolescent. But this is the only thing about the project that was any good. Campos appears to have been trying to make some kind of comment about the impact of computer-based video on 21st-century teenagers. The main character watches clips on You Tube a lot and walks around in a stupor. All his schoolmates are in a similar stupor and have meaningless sex while on drugs. These characters bear no resemblance whatsoever to the teenagers with whom I interact, who are cauldrons of emotion and energy. They may be a bit aimless, but they're far from catatonic. The drama (if you can call it that) surrounds a drug overdose that the main character accidentally captures on video. He stands there dumbfounded as two girls choke to death in the school hallway and doesn't call for help. It's like he's watching a video, get it? Can't tell the difference between video and reality. Ugh. We watch afterward as the well-meaning but feckless teachers and police try to figure out why the boy did nothing. But no one really "gets through to him" (as feckless adults are fond of saying). I think most You Tube videos have more interesting things to say than "Afterschool." At least they have a pulse.
Kevin "

Afterschool is filmed and paced in a very simplistic manner, which might be why the film has a haunting feeling. As a director I have never heard of Antonio Campus, but this film has peaked an interest into what other films he might have directed. However, this film did leave me… More
Afterschool is filmed and paced in a very simplistic manner, which might be why the film has a haunting feeling. As a director I have never heard of Antonio Campus, but this film has peaked an interest into what other films he might have directed. However, this film did leave me wanting more. With the simplistic approach subplots were touched on and never really examined or resolved. In the end this film could have been more.