In Preparation for the Next Life, a pair of unlikely lovers find that love can only take you so far in New York City.
Aishe (Sebiye Behtiyar), an undocumented Uyghur immigrant, and Skinner (Fred Hechinger), an Army veteran struggling to find his place after three tours of duty, meet on the streets of New York. Their chance daytime meeting evolves into a late-night journey through a Latin nightclub, a McDonald’s, and staring into one another’s eyes, wondering if each feels the same way about life and the person sitting across from them as they do.
Being anchorless suits them for a time as they move through life together—Aishe as she scrapes by at a Chinese restaurant, Skinner as he goes to the gym to find purpose in life back in America. Their partnership consists of weight training, of one-upping each other in the amount of beers they can drink, and in insisting they will figure things out together.
Reality sets in on whirlwind romance.
But romance can only fend hardship off for long. Neither can go back to the life they used to know. Aishe narrates flashbacks of her childhood in China, with her soldier father training her to do push-ups and foster resilience. Skinner scrolls through Facebook for glimpses of the life he used to live in the Army, unwilling to tell Aishe about his life before enlisting. Their loneliness evolves into clinging to one another for comfort, until reality collapses on them both. Aishe’s fear of detainment comes to a head as Skinner’s resistance to medication for PTSD threatens to overtake the easygoing, spontaneous man Aishe fell in love with.
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A narrative feature debut from Oscar-nominated documentarian Bing Liu (Minding the Gap) and based on the 2014 novel from Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life explores the elusive promise of the American dream with the harsh-reality grittiness of New York. Cinematographer Ante Chang captures the touristy throng of Times Square just as he does the claustrophobia of Skinner’s basement apartment. Liu’s background in documentaries grounds the film in a level of realism so potent one almost could be tricked into believing these are real people, not actors.
Characters rendered so vivid you almost know them.
If only we knew as much of them as the film wants us to think we do. For a film so concerned about juxtaposing “the next life” with the present one, Skinner and Aishe’s inner lives feel hinted at rather than expressed. If they spent as much time talking as they do dancing around their goals and feelings, we might know them as well as they seem to know each other.
A film like this lives and dies by its performances, and Behtiyar and Hechinger are a winning pair. Behtiyar, making her film debut here, is an excellent find, balancing Aishe’s scrappiness and fear while harboring so much hope in her eyes. Hechinger, last seen as a jovial camp counselor in Hell of a Summer, continues to be one of the most versatile actors of his generation, playing Skinner with equal measure of nonchalance and all-consuming fear.
There’s a lot to love about Preparation for the Next Life and its unwillingness to shy away from the harsh realities of struggle. If Liu has any intention to continue a career in narrative features, we’re well prepared.
Preparation for the Next Life is out now in limited theaters. Watch the trailer below.
Images courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.
REVIEW RATING
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Rating - 7.5/10
7.5/10
Claire was once asked in elementary school why her go-to question was always, “Watch anything good lately?” It’s still her go-to question, because she loves hearing what other people are passionate about. She often sacrifices sleep in the hopes that she will one day clear her to-watch and to-read lists (a futile effort so far).
