As a suburban sweetheart come back from the dead, actress Aubrey Plaza glows with life. Oft-employed for her monotone mockery (popularized on the acclaimed sitcom Parks & Recreation), Plaza throws herself into Life After Beth's low-key zom-com antics, cranking up the smiles, sex drive, and snarling that rejuvenates her possibilities as a performer. Her derangement is pure. When Plaza's title character, teetering on the edge of full-blown Walking Dead, spots a beautiful plant during a walk through the park, she exclaims “LAVENDURRRRRR!” It's idiotic and sublime, work that would make Jim Carrey proud.
Despite Plaza's newfound brilliance, Life After Beth is DOA. With all the grace of a slobbering zombie, Life After Beth limps along with one-note jokes, cursory character arcs, and word vomit delivered as a series of screams. Writer-director Jeff Baena is hungry for brains. It's admirable. When the dead return to his squeaky clean dystopia, it's a blessing, not World War Z. When Beth burrows up from her grave, looking and acting like her regular ol' self, her boyfriend Zach (Dane DeHaan) is given a second chance — for better or worse. Baena's exploration of relationship woes and gender politics through the zombocalypse is ripe with potential... and squandered in messy execution. When there’s no more room in development hell, half-baked ideas will walk the earth.
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