If “Casablanca” famously told the story of a love triangle set against the backdrop of World War II, in which the star-crossed lovers realized that they needed to separate for the greater good because “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” then “The Aftermath” presents a version of that basic story.

The film is set in Hamburg about five months after the Allied victory, as shell-shocked locals stumble through the piles of rubble that used to be their city and Allied troops try to maintain some semblance of order while searching for any remaining Nazi loyalists. One of the men charged with this mission is Lewis Morgan (Jason Clarke), a recently arrived British captain who, unlike most of his fellow soldiers, tries to treat the locals with some modicum of respect and dignity. So much so, in fact, that when he and his wife, Rachel (Keira Knightley), are sent to live in the lavish mansion that has been “requisitioned” from recent widower Stefan (Alexander Skarsgard) and his teenaged daughter Freda (Flora Thiemann), he magnanimously offers to let them continue to live there (in the attic, naturally) instead of forcing them off to stay in a refugee camp. Rachel, who is still struggling to process her son’s death in a bombing raid a couple of years earlier, is not especially thrilled with the arrangement and while Lewis and Stefan try to make the best of the awkward circumstances, she treats Stefan with barely disguised disdain.

As time goes by, no pun intended, and Lewis is constantly called away to work, Rachel’s attitude towards Stefan begins to thaw. Finally, on a night when Lewis is once again gone and Rachel finds herself tending to wounds that Stefan acquired when caught up in an out-of-control street protest, grand passions finally arise and the two find themselves on a table indulging in what the beloved namesake of this website, had he reviewed this film, would have almost certainly referred to as “rumpy-pumpy.” Before long, Rachel is almost a new woman—she smiles, she returns to playing the piano after having given it up for years and seems to have forgotten all of her initial and not-entirely-unfounded suspicions about whether or not Stefan was a full-fledged Nazi. (In a stroke of good fortune, the screenplay also conveniently forgets about this particular plot detail almost as soon as it raises it.) Before long, Rachel is considering running off with Stefan and Freda to a new life but has to figure out how to deal with the morally righteous but somewhat lunkheaded and self-absorbed Lewis, the kind of guy who introduces Rachel to people by saying “This is my wife, Mrs. Morgan.” To complicate things further, Freda has been running around secretly with Albert (Jannik Schumann), a young Nazi wannabe who wants to use her connections to do some violence against his city’s intruders.

The notion of telling a story centered on relationships in the immediate wake of World War II—with the inescapable tensions between the Germans struggling to make a new life under the watchful eye of the same people who destroyed their city—could have plausibly been developed into an insightful drama. “The Aftermath” is a handsomely mounted work.  

The Power of Your Story Seminar

You will examine with Peter de Kuster, founder of The Power of Your Story the way we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves — and, most important, the way we can change those stories to transform our business and personal lives.

“Your story is your life,” says Peter. As human beings, we continually tell ourselves stories — of success or failure; of power or victimhood; stories that endure for an hour, or a day, or an entire lifetime. We have stories about ourselves, our creative business, our customers ; about what we want and what we’re capable of achieving. Yet, while our stories profoundly affect how others see us and we see ourselves, too few of us even recognize that we’re telling stories, or what they are, or that we can change them — and, in turn, transform our very destinies.

Telling ourselves stories provides structure and direction as we navigate life’s challenges and opportunities, and helps us interpret our goals and skills. Stories make sense of chaos; they organize our many divergent experiences into a coherent thread; they shape our entire reality. And far too many of our stories, says Peter, are dysfunctional, in need of serious editing. First, he asks you to answer the question, “In which areas of my life is it clear that I cannot achieve my goals with the story I’ve got?” He then shows you how to create new, reality-based stories that inspire you to action, and take you where you want to go both in your work and personal life.

Our capacity to tell stories is one of our profoundest gifts. Peter’s approach to creating deeply engaging stories will give you the tools to wield the power of storytelling and forever change your business and personal life.