X
- 2019
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 2019
- TV-MA
- Netflix
Summary Created, directed and starring Ricky Gervais as a widower, who decides to say and do anything he wants, no matter the consequences, to punish the world in this dark comedy.
Created By: Ricky Gervais
- 2019
- TV-MA
- Netflix
- 2019
- TV-MA
- Netflix
After Life
Season 1 Premiere: Mar 8, 2019
57
7.8
Where to Watch
Summary Created, directed and starring Ricky Gervais as a widower, who decides to say and do anything he wants, no matter the consequences, to punish the world in this dark comedy.
Created By: Ricky Gervais
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
57
36% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
46% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
18% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 28 Critic Reviews
57
36% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
46% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
18% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Throughout the six-episode season, we see Tony slowly cope with his pain. The process is done so organically that it feels authentic. But what makes this series truly memorable is how brilliantly Ricky Gervais injects humor into such complex subject matter. Touching, poignant and humorous, this is some of the comedian’s best work yet.
Achieves new depths of feelings - and hilarity - in its second season. [27 Apr - 10 May 2020, p. 11]
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 230 User Ratings
7.8
80% Positive
183 Ratings
183 Ratings
10% Mixed
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
10% Negative
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 230 User Ratings
7.8
80% Positive
183 Ratings
183 Ratings
10% Mixed
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
10% Negative
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
Heartbreaking, hilarious, honest, & reflective.
I've lost loved ones - my dog, who happened to be my best friend & love of my life. And although it's been years now past, the pain & overwhelming heartache feels like it was just yesterday.
They say, the sorrow reflects the great love of the heart - & I'll forever gratefully accept it for the time I had with her but it will always hurt nonetheless.
Ricky Gervais as Tony, with his best friend Brandy the Dog, shows that intrinsic connection of honesty & compassion that those of us who are/were lucky enough to have experienced.
After Life is real life in every shape & form. From the oddities, strangeness, peculiar, lost, compassionate, complex characters & their time spent together however fleeting or the Tambury Gazette articles written about them - Ricky Gervais has created one of the absolute best poignant shows of all time & I'm greatly grateful for it. Thank you Ricky Gervais, After Life is truly one of a kind.
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Rarely does a TV show make me want to reevaluate my life. But, as Joni Mitchell sings “Both Sides Now,” I watched the series finale of the most profoundly moving “After Life, ” in tears. Rarely has a TV series (or even a movie, actually) encompass grief and loss with the sublime possibility of hope, juxtaposed with joy, empathy, and humanity (and laughter at the most inappropriate circumstances) as palpable or as moving or as richly as this brilliant show. The cast is splendid, and Ricky Gervais - genius, creator, writer and director - has created a hauntingly beautiful - and painfully funny, tone poem. It’s on Netflix, and you really need to watch it. It just might have you reevaluating YOUR own life.
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While After Life turn navel-gazey--with one man working out his own issues--it still makes for a thoughtful, compelling dark comedy to boot.
After Life finds its own pulse mostly when Gervais is doing riffs that wouldn't be at all out of place in his standup, podcast or other performative routines. ... It's harder to feel much in the repetitive loops of Tony lamenting the squalor of his life, meandering around town criticizing people for mundane behavior or staring at the endless movies that his wife left him so that, in the afterlife, she could be remembered as a plot device and not a character of her own.
While there’s something undeniably charming about the world of After Life, its final season is bland and forgettable, weighed down by cliché dialogue and a muddled tone.
Gervais’s sharply honed comedic timing and delivery are undeniable, even when he’s working with such tiresome or obvious material as this. ... Still, the cumulative effect of these interactions and the countless others in which Tony berates or belittles the people in his life is ultimately numbing.
Another trite, mawkish, soggy pudding of a series, that wallows in its own cynical slurry pit of emotion and thin-skinned misanthropy.
Ricky seemed to have learned from the first two seasons and added more character development -however hasty and aimless that was. The other characters seem to exist only to give Tony pep talks, reminding him that he's a good guy. We the viewers don't see the proof of this til the last episode where he is sappy and In my opinion, uncharacteristically giving. If Gervais wanted to prove he could write or direct or star in something other than a comedy, then he has. I Just don't understand the need to do all at once, with such heavy handed sentimentalism. I finished the show, but Good Grief, I'm glad it's over.
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I thought the storyline was weak, as well as being irresponsible & naive. Apparently, according to Ricky Gervais, grief & depression is wallowing if it goes on for more than a few weeks & the way to get over mental anguish is to simply stop being a selfish, whiny **** & start doing good deeds for people. This is the answer! And all from someone who has said several times publicly that he doesn’t know what depression feels like.
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Tears at any cost.
After Life is ridiculously heavy handed. Walking around, head hanging low with over sad despondent poor me face is not a profound insight into grief. Drug dealers, prostitutes and fellow grievers shoehorned in to a middle class village whenever the character needs to evolve a smidge at a time is crass at best. Like Gervais says everybody has had someone to grieve for, no-one that has grieved does it with a wide spectrum of colourful overwritten strangers. There were signs from the start of Gervais leaning towards cheap tears over laughs. It was indulged hugely in Derek, a show an unknown could not have made with their own money, nor should it have been, to this contrived point scoring for tears melodrama. Gervais is a comedy actor that knows he can wring no further mileage from Brentisms, but should not delude himself into thinking that moving the line towards his broad-stroke emotional drama makes him a credible dramatic actor. Try something subtle Mr Gervais with no prostitutes hanging around a common in the middle of the day, no quirky endearing smack dealers that will conveniently die for main character development, no second tier cast members with late on reveals of comparable hidden tear-jerking life problems. Brent was at his zenith when we first saw him, unexplainable how he ever got there, but as time proved was self deluded enough to not cling to the windfall that landed in his lap. After life is the dramatic next chapter of When the whistle blows.
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Production Company:
- Derek Productions
Initial Release Date: Mar 8, 2019
Number of seasons: 3 Seasons
Rating: TV-MA
Awards
British Film Designers Guild Awards
• 2 Nominations
National Film Awards, UK
• 2 Nominations
TV Choice Awards UK
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
