Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
The award-nominated "After-School Special" is an American 9-minute live action short film from 2011, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year. It was directed by Jacob Chase, who is not too famous, but perhaps you have come across another effort by writer Neil LaBute already. The stars here, however, are of course the two grown-up actors Sarah Paulson and Wes Bentley who have been enjoying prolific and successful careers for a long time now. They also have nice chemistry together and in the first half, this film is at its best when it is these two on the screen. When the son of Paulson's character enters the picture, it gets south quickly because the child actor really wasn't particularly good, but also because there felt very little to the story as they were basically just talking about the first half of the film and what happened. So maybe a 6-minute film with Paulson having a short solo ending when Bentley is leaving would have been the better choice for this film. I like the actor, but the film's decrease in quality from okay to weak was just too decisive for me to recommend the watch here. I give it a thumbs-down and suggest you skip this one unless you are a huge fan of either Paulson or Bentley.
