Chilean director Shawn Garry’s comedy-drama After Elena, World premiering in the Centrepiece competition of this year's Toronto Film Festival, features Alfredo Castro in the role of Roberto, who, in the aftermath of his wife Elena’s death, is left to navigate a life suddenly stripped of its familiar structure. The man, deeply attached to order and routine, is forced to open his home once again to his three grown children and their return brings old tensions to the surface, as each carries a different burden of failure, secrecy and grief. At the centre of it all is the void Elena has left behind.

From an aesthetic point of view, the film feels rather flat, and the general set-up comes across as fairly basic and somewhat television-like. The production design (Sebastián Torrico) and cinematography (Pau Monrás) are good, but they never surpass the average, and the editing (Esteban Muñoz) is similarly well done, but overall unremarkable. The one major strength is the performance of the always-excellent Alfredo Castro. As usual, the actor does not disappoint. His interpretation gives the character considerable depth and three-dimensionality, whilst also making him particularly sympathetic to the audience.

The visual and directorial qualities improve noticeably towards the ending, which finally hits all the right notes. In fact, the finale stands out, in terms of quality, compared with everything that has led to it. Unfortunately, this improvement comes far too late to redeem the film. What remains is the rather bitter sense that an opportunity has been wasted: the premise could have resulted in something much more complete and capable of working on every level than this rather flat production which does not necessarily have much new to say about the subject it chooses to explore. This, however, also makes After Elena fairly easy to follow as it is quite undemanding from a viewing perspective, despite dealing with the difficult subject of having to survive after the death of one’s partner.

The film’s frequent attempts to be funny are not always successful. The way unresolved family issues following the death of a loved one are dealt with feels fairly underdeveloped and does little to distinguish itself through originality, which is the main issue within the script, co-written by the director with Bernardo Quesney and Carla Stagno. A comedy with a very different tone comes to mind here, one that approached death and family in a much more distinctive way: Rodrigo García’s Apple TV title Raymond & Ray, which also screened at the Canadian festival a few years ago. The two productions are obviously very different, but the point of comparison is the originality of the treatment given to a similar theme. When dealing with a topic as extensively explored and familiar as death, cinema needs to give it a genuinely distinctive perspective. Otherwise, if the approach is not particularly remarkable in itself, it needs to generate a certain degree of humour. Sadly, despite its good intentions, Shawn Garry’s second feature seems to struggle in its attempt to fully capture hearts and generate genuine laughter. There are a few good moments (like seeing Roberto’s daughter, an “influencer” mum, still breastfeeding her grown-up son), but they never fully land, certainly not enough to make up for the rest of the film.

After Elena was coproduced by Doc: Co (Colombia), Creative Content (Garry’s own company in Chile), Zoe Films (Italy), the Fundacion Rio and By Lace Films, both from in Chile. The Buenos Aires-based boutique sales agency Meikincine Entertainment is in charge of selling the film worldwide.