Costa Rica is a beautiful place to film, and a woman's journey into wholeness can make for a fine story. Harden does her best, but the movie hates Jane. Juan's relentless enthusiasm - helped by Jaenada's superhuman charm - pushes sober, timid Jane to drink beer, climb a mountain, and have what seem to be the first human conversations in her life. Instead, she meets Juan (Óscar Jaenada), a single father, tour guide, and occasional gigolo who gives Jane a week of tours in exchange for money he needs to pay for his daughter's (Jenna Ortega) private school. Her library branch is closing, so she sets off for Costa Rica to kill herself in paradise. Marcia Gay Harden's Jane is the most introverted woman who ever sat behind an information desk. Now you have the characters in Juan Feldman's After Words.
Now, imagine that idea of a librarian imagining a 'Latin man.' Does he stand a little too close as he guides her, white tourist, around his beautiful country? Do his eyes, the deepest and most soulful she's ever looked into, dance as he laughs is he always laughing when he's not asking her sexily philosophical questions? Is she a mousy middle-aged brunette, her unkempt hair clashing with the muddy browns of her ill-fitting wardrobe? Does she work in silence, worshipping books but resenting their readers, returning every evening to a shoddy apartment and disinterested cat?
