AN impressively self-assured first feature about death at a prep school, “Afterschool” announces a new talent: 25-year-old writer-director Antonio Campos.
Relying heavily on eerie and unnerving long takes, the movie centers on a lonely teen student (Ezra Miller) at a rich boarding school who has difficulty connecting with the world around him except by silent observation. He captures images of the deaths by drug overdose of two popular twin girls and sets about directing a short film in their honor that is mostly a tribute to the alienation and awkwardness around him.
Though thin on story, the film shows poise and vision, using bleak cinema-realité techniques with chilling effect. Campos promises to be heard from again.
Running time: 107 minutes. Not rated (sex, violence, profanity, drug use by teens). At the Cinema Village, 12th Street, east of Fifth Avenue.