Admirable film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Once again, Alan Rudolph shows why he is one of the best directors working in film and I give special credit to cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita for his excellent camera work. Okay, so its flawed, especially in casting Nick Nolte as the man about town. His appeal is not very believable although he and Johnny Lee Miller do finally find their groove in their scenes opposite Christie. Miller tries hard to make some sense of his elliptically written character, and looks so good that one hardly cares when his lines are ludicrous.The real treasure in the movie are its actresses. Julie Christie and Lara Flynn Boyle do all that they can with what's written for them (at times, a little too much), and Christie really manages to give this movie a heart and soul. She should have won the Oscar (but lost to Helen Hunt playing Helen Hunt in As Good As it Gets). Christie is arguably our most cinematic actress. One cannot imagine how she would emote on stage. Her face conveys everything, said and unsaid, hidden and obvious, and in playing for the camera as only she can do, she does for this movie what she did for Dr. Zhivago: she gives it a little life. This film is touching, funny, quirky, and just plain great, it will entertain everyone with its sense of joie de vivre and irony.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

I only give it a 2 instead of a 1 because Julie Christie is always such a joy to watch.The problem is, you can't figure out what is going on much of the time. Plot lines seem to make no sense. Example: at the end, Christie is crying. Has her daughter died or not? That is never made clear. If not, what is she sobbing about? Then there is the scene where Christie tries to seduce husband Nolte. She is attempting to repair their marriage. It is not clear why he rejects her, he seems to love her and it was she who had called off their sex life, not he. There is no discussion of this event afterward to clarify things.Characters throughout behave in ways that seem very unlikely and you can't figure them out. If a movie is going to be this surreal and confusing, it should be funny or suspenseful. This is neither. The Jonny Lee Miller character is peculiar beyond belief and that is never resolved. You can't figure him out at all,even at the end.Enough said, avoid this movie. You can see Christie in Away from Her, a far superior film.

"You're the most fascinating woman I've ever met", he tells her after knowing her for about five minutes. Perhaps that will give you a sense of the sophomoric nature of "Afterglow"; a film which tells of two neurotic married couples, one middle aged (Nolte/Christie) and one younger (Boyle/Miller), and their respective interwoven infidelities. With a solid core cast and good technical and artistic capabilities and an interesting premise, "Afterglow" should have offered more than characters we're not given to care about even if we could suspend disbelief long enough to care. Nonetheless, there's enough going for this mediocre drama to make it a worthwhile small screen watch for sofa spuds with an appetite for the subject.

Julie Christie is magnificent as Phyl Mann, wife of Nick Nolte's Lucky "Fix-it" Mann. Age has not been kind to the couple until they find an odd path to revitalization. Nick Nolte makes the offbeat casting work, and Charlotte Rampling has a magnificent supporting role.