I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to, but I do wish they went deeper with it.

Afterlife of the Party follows a party girl who unfortunately died young and to pass on to the afterlife has to complete some tasks on Earth with the three most important people in her life: her dad, her mum, and her best friend.

However due to this girl’s lifestyle of being quite fun and carefree these relationships that she has to complete have fallen apart and it’s a race against time to see if she’ll able to make it to the afterlife or not.

I really like the premise of the story and the idea that you cannot leave things unsaid on Earth. To pass on and be at peace forever is a really interesting concept and a really nice one too, because when someone dies you often don’t get the chance to say goodbye, and so being able to have that closure with them because they have to close it in order to pass on makes the things that you notice when someone has passed that could be signs of them in the world around you so much more special.

I feel my own issue with this film is that the party girl did not have enough issues. In the first scene we see that it is her birthday, she’s going out for an evening out to celebrate her birthday, and yes she has some questionable friends, but not only her party friends that are a bit on the wild side, but also her best friend who is a bit of a killjoy. When it’s your birthday surely you should want to go out and party and have fun and why is she trying to stop that? Why is she trying to stop her friend enjoying herself?

I think it would’ve been better if this was just a random Tuesday night, she has work the next day or something like that and her friend is trying to make her see that she isn’t this 18-year-old party girl anymore but is 25-years-old and has a career and she needs to grow up a bit. At least then we can see how her partying and her carefree nature is affecting other areas of her life rather than her friend seeming like a buzz kill because she’s not letting her enjoy her birthday.

I really enjoyed this film and I would definitely recommend it, especially if you like teenage comedies that are a bit lighthearted but also quite sweet and sentimental. I just wish they’d have gone harder with making the party girl look way worse than she did. I saw her life as her just living it as she wanted to and being happy, of course she should’ve been closer to her dad and the issue with her mum and her leaving etc. is always a hard topic but at the end of the day, it seems like she was doing what she thought was best for her and you can’t blame her for that.

Give me her going to work drunk or super hungover and being terrible at her job. Give me her being spiteful or rude to people in coffee shops or restaurants. Give me her messing around different guys and getting with another guy every night and her partying every night and being late. Give me more complexity because right now I don’t see any issue with what she did in her life and I don’t see why she had to be penalised so much and made to change so much once she had died.

What do you think of Afterlife of the Party?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding