It's a lot of skill and talent expended on a spat a good lawyer could probably have sorted out during the opening credit sequence. Instead Lafosse offers a lot of the "after," and none of the "love."

For most of its running time, director and co-writer Joachim Lafosse gives the impression that he's drilled a hole into the side of a married couple's home in order to afford audiences an unmediated, worm's eye view of their gradual dissolution.

Messy and ungovernable at its strongest, Lafosse's film is a story of heartbreak and real estate and, not least, money, viewed from within the still-smoldering ruins.

After Love is a film of harsh truths and humanistic empathy, finding a middle ground between love turned to hate and tolerance so that one may more fully love one's children.