After You’re Gone (2016) Plot Summary Explained

Alexey's performing career ended abruptly in the 1990s when he suffered a serious spinal injury during a tour. This injury forced him to abandon stage performance entirely and return to his hometown, where he started a dance school and apothecary shop to stay connected to dance through teaching.

Foreshadowing: The film establishes early on that he was compared to Mikhail Baryshnikov, making the fall from fame even more dramatic.

• spinal injury
• ballet career
• performing ended
• 1990s

Chiara is Alexey's 12-year-old daughter who suddenly appears in his life wanting him to teach her to dance. The revelation of her existence reshapes his understanding of family responsibility and creates tension between his guarded emotional nature and his new role as a father.

Foreshadowing: The timeline notes Chiara's arrival as a present-day event that disrupts his settled routine.

• Chiara
• daughter
• father
• dance lessons

Alexey faces a degenerative condition that threatens to rob him of his ability to walk. This mirrors his earlier spinal injury and intensifies his existential fears about mortality and legacy, pushing him to finally stage the ballet he had long imagined.

Foreshadowing: His past injury resurfaces as a present threat, connecting his old trauma to new fears.

• degenerative condition
• mobility
• spinal problem
• walking

Alexey decides to mount the Prokofiev ballet because he is confronting his mortality, the degenerative condition means he may soon lose the ability to walk. The ballet represents his unrealized artistic vision and his chance to leave a lasting legacy beyond his teaching career.

Foreshadowing: The timeline references the ballet as an unfinished work from his past that haunts his memory.

• Prokofiev ballet
• comeback
• legacy
• staging
• artistic dream

Alexey shows reluctance toward marriage and fatherhood despite Marina's pregnancy and Chiara's desire to learn from him. He remains emotionally guarded, often retreating to his office after teaching rather than engaging with family. His focus on artistic legacy and fear of failure in personal relationships keep him from fully embracing these new responsibilities.

Foreshadowing: His pattern of isolation is established early when he closes himself in his office after teaching.

• Marina
• marriage
• fatherhood
• emotional avoidance
• commitment

The ballet set to Prokofiev's music represents Alexey's unrealized artistic vision, the work he created but never dared to stage. It symbolizes his ultimate creative legacy and serves as a catalyst for his comeback, allowing him to affirm his life through art before his body fails him completely.

Foreshadowing: The ballet is introduced as a 'seed from the past' that sprouts into action.

• Prokofiev
• unfinished ballet
• artistic vision
• creative legacy

Chiara's appearance becomes a catalyst that pushes Alexey toward emotional engagement with his family. Her longing to know him and learn dance helps bridge the gap between his legendary past and his present responsibilities as a father, signaling a possible new chapter in his life.

Foreshadowing: The timeline notes Chiara as a turning point that reshapes his view of responsibility.

• Chiara
• daughter
• family
• personal growth
• transformation

Alexey's fear of losing his ability to walk stems from his traumatic spinal injury that already ended his performing career. The prospect feels like death to him because dance is his identity and his way of expressing art. Facing a degenerative condition that will rob him of mobility triggers existential questions about what will remain after he's gone.

Foreshadowing: His past injury and the parallel to his current condition create a sense of inevitability.

• fear of walking
• mobility loss
• identity
• dance
• mortality

After his spinal injury forced him to abandon performance, Alexey returned to his suburban hometown and opened a dance school-studio alongside an apothecary shop. This allowed him to stay connected to dance through teaching while building a practical, everyday life, blending his artistic identity with entrepreneurship and stability.

Foreshadowing: The timeline shows this as his immediate response to career-ending injury.

• dance school
• hometown
• teaching
• new life
• adaptation

Alexey wants to leave a lasting artistic legacy through the ballet he never staged. Haunted by the question 'what will be left of me after I'm gone?' he sees the Prokofiev ballet as his chance to affirm his life, share his art with the world, and create something that outlasts his physical decline.

Foreshadowing: The film's central theme of legacy is introduced early through his daily existential question.

• legacy
• artistic contribution
• rememberance
• life affirmation