The After is a 2023 short film (18 minutes) directed by Misan Harriman.
Dayo (David Oyelowo) is a young professional with a charming wife, Amanda, and a super-cute young daughter, Laura. One day David and Laura are walking along a pedestrian bridge when they meet Amanda. The sun is shining and it's a happy day—until a knife-wielding maniac races into the scene out of nowhere, while Dayo is several paces away on his phone. The maniac stabs Laura in the gut and throws her off the bridge. A panicking Amanda leans too far over the bridge looking for Laura and also falls to her death.
Cut forward a year. Dayo is a mess, barely functional, not answering calls either from his friends or his grief support workers. He's quit his professional job and is now working as a ride share driver. One day, he picks up a squabbling couple at the airport, a couple who have a daughter that is the spitting image of Laura.
Tropes:
- Awful Wedded Life: The squabbling couple spends the whole ride home picking and sniping at each other nonstop. It is so unpleasant that their daughter is reluctant to get out of the car, and is so upset that she hugs Dayo, a total stranger, for comfort—which leads directly to the climax.
- Beard of Sorrow: Dayo, who was clean-shaven when he was a happy husband and father, is bearded when he's a broken man after the Time Skip.
- Death of a Child: And of a wife. The entirely random and senseless death of his wife and daughter leaves Dayo a shell of his former self, going through life on autopilot.
- Distant Prologue: One year between the Downer Beginning first scene and the rest of the story.
- Downer Beginning: The first scene has Dayo's wife and daughter killed in an attack by a random knife-wielding maniac.
- Happy Flashback: There is a brief flashback, during the montage where Dayo is driving people around, to his last happy afternoon with his wife and daughter just before the tragedy.
- Moving Beyond Bereavement: Suggested at the end. The little girl the same age as Laura was hugs Dayo, causing him to completely melt down, collapsing to the sidewalk, curling up in a fetal position, uncontrollably weeping. But he calms down, pulls himself together, wipes his face, and gets in the car and drives away. The idea seems to be that after that moment of emotional catharsis, Dayo may be able to get on with his life.
- One-Person Birthday Party: For someone else, but the effect is the same. Dayo sits in his car, looks at a photo of his daughter, and sings "Happy Birthday to You" as his eyes brim with tears.
- "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The film ends with the camera panning up to the sky as Dayo, after a moment of emotional catharsis, drives off.
- Time-Passes Montage: The middle section of that film is a montage of Dayo driving various passengers. A happy family of three bothers him, a woman worrying about her sick son affects him emotionally, and sometimes he finds himself tuning out inane chatter.
