THE AFTERMATH is set in postwar Germany in 1946. Keira Knightley plays Rachael Morgan who arrives in the ruins of Hamburg in the bitter winter, to be reunited with her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke), a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an unexpected decision: They will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower (Alexander Skarsgård) and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal.
One of the most respected actors working today, Academy Award-nominee Keira Knightley
eagerly signed on to play Rachael Morgan, a woman struggling to deal with the death of her young child and baffled and shocked by her husband’s decision to share a house with someone she sees as the enemy.
“In drama, you normally deal with the bit that leads up to the dramatic moment—in this case the death of their son,” Knightley says. “But this film asks, what happens after that? How as a couple do you come out of something that is so unimaginably horrific? How do you rebuild a relationship? I thought it was all something that I’d never explored before,” she said.
The film also offered Knightley, an actress whose resume is studded with standout
performances in numerous period dramas, the opportunity to learn about the era during which the film takes place. “I didn’t know anything about this particular part of history,” says Knightley. “I didn’t know that there was an English occupation of Germany after the war, so I was really interested in the idea of how, when you’ve been enemies for so long, do you suddenly see people as people again, and not simply as evil and on the other side? It’s a really difficult thing to do when you’ve lived through such incredibly violent times and everybody has experienced such loss.”
With the beautiful Keira Knightly and equally easy on the eye Alexander Skarsgård this has a little bit of everything; war, passion and betrayal.
THE AFTERMATH is great and gets ★★★★★
Best known for her role in BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, Keira Knightley recently appeared in Wash Westmoreland’s 2018 film COLETTE, based on the real-life story of the titular Nobel Prize-nominated writer who rebelled against male manipulation and abuse, as well as Disney’s THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS in which she stars as the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy.’
Her work also includes a trio of collaborations with Joe Wright for films PRIDE AND
PREJUDICE; ATONEMENT and ANNA KARENINA. Her critically acclaimed portrayal in
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE garnered her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role; and she was also nominated for a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for her performance in ATONEMENT.
Keira has also starred in the worldwide box office blockbuster hit, Disney’s PIRATES OF
THE CARRIBEAN, starring opposite Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, starring as ‘Elizabeth Swann.’
She made her debut in the BBC TV series SCREEN ONE and went on to appear in several
other BBC dramas, including DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, THE MUSIC PRACTICE and OLIVER.
