At this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival I was only able to check out a couple of films due to an extreme lack of money but with my reviewing work I’ve been invited to check out a whole heap of those films as they slowly get theatre releases here. The festival only had a handful of New Zealand films and  I’ve recently been able to see and review a couple of them, one being ‘After The Waterfall'. As usual, I went in knowing very little about it other than it was a New Zealand film starring ‘Outrageous Fortune’ actor Anthony Starr.

“Forest ranger John Drean, is a father haunted by the disappearance of his four year-old daughter, and the subsequent breakup of his marriage. Three years after John’s daughter Pearl vanished, he seems trapped forever by the pain and anger of the past. When John discovers his ex-wife Ana is pregnant - to the policeman in charge of his missing daughter’s case - a complex drama unfolds.”

New Zealand is known for making many little personal dramas and, if done well, they can be great but I really need a bit more these days for it to grab my attention and sadly this film just never did. Its best aspect was the acting, with some great performances, and some average ones, but overall that really was the best part even when I felt the actors must have been struggling with a bad script. This leads me to my main problem with the film. Yes, it’s based on a book, but some of the scenes and the story just didn’t make sense and even got unintentional laughs from the audience at times, which is never a good thing for a drama. So overall, for me, this was a very disappointing film with some good acting muddled with bad writing and some average directing.

6 out of 10 from me.