After Hours: An Absurd Yet Incredibly Charming Offering

Many films start and finish in the same place; sometimes the beginning sequences end in a cliffhanger, making it clear that the gaps will be filled throughout the running time, and the ending will tie everything in a perfect knot. Martin Scorsese proposes something else in his 1985 black comedy, After Hours. You would never guess the beginning and ending are related and not as a plot device but as something absurd; something that gives the film one of its many edges.

The film clearly understands its assignment and how to do it. It lives within the compounds of its reach, and as the movie progresses, it gets intensely deeper in its purpose, collecting Easter eggs along the way—moments that make you say, “Oh, that’s clever.” And that’s precisely it—it’s a funny film, but more than that, it’s clever. This doesn’t mean that it has insane twists and corners in its storyline, but it has many layers to it.

After Paul (Griffin Dunne) gets hooked by the presence of a woman, Marcy (Rosanna Arquette), who he meets at a diner, he embarks on a twisted journey to rendezvous with her again at her friend’s apartment. To his eyes, weird things start to echo around him but he chooses to ignore hoping to score something romantic with Marcy. After getting spooked by a summation of little events, he bolts it and leaves unannounced. After this decision, he feels like he can’t get a foot right and every step he takes in an attempt to go back home, feels like a step back to something unpleasant. He visits a bar, a restaurant, and a club and meets waitresses, artists, taxi drivers, and angry neighbors but regardless of where he might be, it all feels the same - like he can never get home. 

Martin Scorsese’s careful guidance is admirable here. Scorsese works so well behind the initial idea of making a plotline from point A to B. He’s interested in creating a spider-web at every point leading up to the finale using a well-grounded dialogue as his primary weapon. Sometimes, not everything makes sense and not all coincidences connect seamlessly however, I am fulfilled and pleased with the ones that do. 

Apart from being incredibly funny, I think that After Hours is just a feel-good movie. It has a lot to say about human exploration and spontaneity. On a spiritual level, I connected with this movie because it gave me a message, a spiritual one at that - that the more you force something and victimize yourself in the process, the harder it seems for things to unfold without friction. Of course, forcing yourself through something is a way to progress in life and many humans do it without a blink of an eye but maybe, just maybe, it is not your way - meaning that, all that energy you are putting into forcing something to happen or not to happen, can be placed in another outlet, another outlet best suited for you and thereby, giving a chance for things to take a better turn. 

The film also told me that it’s okay if things aren’t going your way, it might be unpleasant that's for sure, but embrace and trust the process because it could lead to unexpected places. It seemed to me like Paul was forcing something too much and when things took a turn he didn’t expect or weren’t in his plans, he would lash out and push away people who might seem weird but maybe had so much to offer, people who we never gave a chance and thereby, losing the element of spontaneity which is iron because this movie on the surface show so many spontaneity - so much unexpected and unexplained events but at the same time, provides a very interesting antithesis to that subject matter.