Movie Review: Netflix’s Afterlife of The Party Lives On
Watching Victoria Justice’s Cassie realize she died from a toilet bowl concussion, the day after her her birthday, felt raw to me. Frankly….. what a way to go! Cassie is not a bad person, even though she is not always the most charming. She is a 25 year old who wishes to live life to the fullest, and can be obnoxious about that. Yet, at 25, you are obnoxious, fun, and feeling invincible. The underbelly of the quite charming Afterlife of The Party is realizing that feeling, like tomorrow was guaranteed, blocked you from saying how much you loved today with your family and friends.
Victoria Justice as Cassie emotes the pain of dying young, and knowing you had so many more tomorrows to call your dad (Adam Garcia as Howie), forgive your abandoning mom (Gloria Garcia as Sofia), or hang out with your friend, Lisa (Midori Francis) and plot a hookup with the cute neighbor, Max (Timothy Renouf). Frankly, I am guilty of that: of thinking I can do everything tomorrow and never ONCE imagining that I would not be on this earth as the sun rises for a new day. Written by Carrie Freedle and directed by Stephen Herek, I was surprised by the sweet humility that the story uses to approach an utmost tragedy we do not fully comprehend. For all the violence that trends, taking away young lives, the idea of youth ending feels perplexing and for Cassie and Lisa…. it is not even understood, despite the laughs and misadventures they endure being best friends: one dead, one alive.
Afterlife of The Party is the perfect emotional rollercoaster between its gaudy, YA laughs and the tender, tragic conversation between two friends that needed one to die to be the most sincere with each other. That may seem like a really dark thought, but just reimagine all the thoughts and prayers you said when no one was looking: what truths did you reveal because only you heard them. For Cassie, Lisa being her listening ear is triply important, and it is not an easy feat to create a feel-good, YA film on the gravity of sudden, youthful death. Yet, the film succeeds, in part, because Justice flexes her Nickelodeon muscles to assure that every emotional turn, even different and bigger than the last, feels natural. Thus, naturally, her scenes with the warm Midori are absolute perfection. They make Cassie and Lisa feel like genuine friends, and made the film remind me of Heaven Can Wait: a movie about a vapid, young football player whom discovers, in the afterlife, that love was all that matter in life. Beautifully, but unfortunately, that is Cassie’s lesson, as well.
