The Aftermath (15)
Directed by James Kent

THIS Mills and Boon-style weepie opens in 1945, five months after the allied victory, with Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) heading to Hamburg to join her husband Lewis (Jason Clark), a British colonel charged with rebuilding the bombed out city.

In her train carriage she overhears a little boy asking his mother what fraternising with the Germans means and being told why not to. It’s a warning to Rachael and us of what is to come.

On her arrival, she is stunned to be informed by the aloof Lewis that they'll be sharing their lavish new home with its previous German owners, widower Stefan Lubert (Alexander Skarsgard) and his troubled teenage daughter Freda (Flora Thiemann).

With Rachael’s strained marriage, and learning how she and Lubert have both lost a very close loved one due to the war, it is of course a race against time as to how quickly she will end up in his arms and his bed.

Based on Rhidian Brook’s novel, James Kent’s gorgeous-looking drama about loss and betrayal misses a vital beat by not exploring more fully the Allied role in helping to rebuild Germany after the war and the tensions and difficulties that must have sparked on both sides.

The three leads do a valiant job in breathing life into their very two-dimensional characters and their predictable love triangle. But the end result appears more like a lavish made-for-TV film, no doubt thanks to BBC Films funding.

And with Skarsgard in the picture, it’s a no-brainer where Knightley’s character is heading, so the ending is somewhat disingenuous.