Review: After (2019)

So... there's a film based on Harry Styles fan-fiction now. I would love to laugh at how ridiculous that is, but I'm the one choosing to sit here and review it, so where’s the real idiocy?

After is based on the book of the same name, the first one in the After series by Anna Todd. The main male character, Hardin Scott, is a fan-fictionalised version of One Direction member Harry Styles. After was originally published on Wattpad, but its popularity spawned its publication in novel format, and now a film, which I will look at today.

After follows Tessa Young (played by Josephine Langford), who is about to start her first year at university. Her mother (portrayed by Selma Blair) and boyfriend Noah (Dylan Arnold) help her move into the room she’ll share with Steph (Khadijha Red Thunder), an older student who smokes weed, parties and has a girlfriend. Tessa’s mother disapproves, but Tessa convinces her mother to let her stay in the room with Steph. The two roommates become friendly, and Tessa begins to meet Steph's friends, including English bad-boy Hardin Scott (the Harry Styles inspired character, played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin). Tessa finds herself repeatedly caught up with Hardin, which develops into something more, much to the chagrin of everyone around them.

I have to get this out of the way: Hardin is a terrible name. It sounds so much like hard-on, and when your story is One Direction fanfiction, do you really need to give your audience more things to make fun of? Apparently the names were only changed when After was published in novel form, the characters from the Wattpad story originally had the names of the 1D members they were based on. That manages to both explain and create some awkwardness.

I went into this film expecting to hate-watch it or find it so bad it was good, but it was neither. It was mostly dull, but actually kind of fine? Passable. The book received terrible reviews, and from the excerpts I’ve read, I can see why. I’ve also read that fans of the film were disappointed by it, though I'm not sure which elements let them down. I think it could honestly be a lot worse. As a warning, I may refer to the films Fifty Shades of Grey and The Kissing Booth throughout this review, because those films bear similarities to After (notably Fifty Shades, which also started out as fan fiction). However, most of the times when I will make these comparisons, it will actually be in After’s favour.

For a start, the two leads Langford and Fiennes-Tiffin are actually decent in their roles, and present a good amount of romantic chemistry (better than in Fifty Shades at least). Their characters are both awful – Tessa is a dull, cliché heroine, and Hardin is toxic – but Langford brings as much life to Tessa as there ever could have been. The film has an odd fascination about her being a virgin: it isn't odd for an eighteen year old girl to have not had sex yet.

Even Netflix calls Tessa "wholesome", and we all know that's code for "virgin".

As for Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, he can make Hardin seem likeable in the moments he is supposed to be charming, though the character is rarely pleasant. I liked Shane Paul McGhie as Landon, and Khadijha Red Thunder as Steph, but the rest of the cast are pretty forgettable. This is a shame in Selma Blair’s case, but I really didn’t like Tessa’s mother, although we’ll get to that shortly.

This film expresses an awareness that Hardin is an unhealthy character, and the relationship he has with Tessa is toxic because of that. He has strong emotional baggage from his past, which has led to him having anger and intimacy issues. It really should have been further established and made into a clear plot point, but I can’t help thinking that they wouldn’t do that because Hardin is heavily inspired by a popular celebrity. As this is public knowledge, I don’t think they would want to present this character in an overly negative way. This is a real shame, as there is so much teen fiction that romanticises what are actually toxic relationships. It would be good and helpful to see a film that depicts an unhealthy teen relationship, how to get out of it and how to be okay again after going going through that. After acknowledges the toxicity in the central romance in a pretty horrible way, when Tessa’s mother threatens to cut Tessa out of her life if she stays with Hardin. She warns Tessa that Hardin will break her heart and he isn’t good for her. This just drives Tessa away from her mother and makes her want to cling tighter to Hardin - it's a very poor way of handling the situation. I can only say it is still better than The Kissing Booth, where the only reason people were upset about the toxic relationship is because they weren’t told that those people were dating.

I want to talk about Landon (played by Shane Paul McGhie) for a minute. Landon is absolutely lovely. He’s good looking, clever, kind and considerate of others. He even has a better meet-cute with Tessa than Hardin does. Landon meets Tessa after they arrive early for their first class together. They’re both a little shy and awkward, even clutching their backpack straps in the same geeky way. They sit down next to each other, start talking and strike up a natural, friendly chemistry.

Landon

How does Tessa meet Hardin for the first time? She goes for a shower, and then returns to her room to change into her clothes and he’s just sat on her bed, reading one of her books and insists he isn’t going to look at dripping wet, naked-but-for-a-towel Tessa, while refusing to leave. Enchanting.

I understand that Hardin is supposed to be someone who grows on you over time, but I struggle to understand how Tessa became so quickly intrigued by Hardin after that.

Landon is apparently based on Liam from One Direction, which I don’t really understand: he’s African-American, while Hardin is white and English. I'm happy with the diversity, and with all due respect, I don't care about One Direction. Landon is the best character in this film to me, and that's largely down to McGhie. I just think it's a bit risky when the target audience is teenage girls from an online community - generally, those people tend to be a wee bit precious about the things they like, and how they want them to be represented. However, I'm just happy the cast a good person for the part. If I had to go by this film alone, I suppose I’m Team Liam now. Not that I ever had a team before.

It is revealed that Hardin and Landon are step-brothers. Landon is glad his mother is happy in her new marriage, and makes an effort to treat Hardin like a brother, while Hardin ignores him to sulk about what an awful person his own father is. He keeps lamenting that his father abandoned his mother, who is living a poor lifestyle back in England. If Hardin loves his mother and hates his father, why would he leave her to come to another country where the father he supposedly hates is? Especially when he is worried about his mother. He doesn't particularly seem to be embracing the education he's getting in the States. I think this needs an explanation.

There’s also the issue of this film containing one of my most disliked clichés: the love triangle. Tessa arrives at university with a boyfriend, Noah, who is a year younger than her and still in high school. Yes, I’m equally intrigued as to how “wholesome” Tessa is a cougar. Noah gets angry at Tessa when she phones him from a party, where she has had alcohol, and sarcastically says: “Okay, so you go to college and now you drink. That’s really great Tessa.” He’s a pretty annoying character, but that’s no reason for Tessa to cheat on him, he can't help being two-dimensional. They should have broken up before Tessa went to uni. I hate it so much when this happens in films. It doesn’t make Hardin look like more of a bad-boy, and it doesn’t make Hardin and Tessa’s relationship seem sexy because it’s forbidden. It shows that our two main characters are horrible people. To the films credit, Tessa does apologise to Noah at the end, and they have a talk about it all, although I don’t think it’s particularly well done, as the two are shown to be laughing together far sooner than they should be.

The rebellious crowd Tessa hangs around with aren’t bad. They drink, smoke weed, have sex and get tattoos – in other words, they are the average university students. It’s annoyingly naïve that the people in Tessa’s life wouldn’t think that she'd even come across people like that in her adult education.

I have written a lot about the characters and very little about the plot. Honestly? There is not much plot. After is just about Tessa and Hardin’s relationship growing. That’s it. We don’t see Tessa developing any friendships that seem layered and authentic (apart from Landon) and we don’t learn anything about how she is handling her first year at university. Tessa likes books, is a virgin and gets good grades. That's all we know about her. There is a twist at the end regarding Hardin’s true intentions towards Tessa. While I won't spoil the revelation it entirely, it felt a bit cheap, and let's just say it certainly felt like Anna Todd has seen She's All That:

Tessa feels betrayed by Hardin, but I can’t help slightly wondering why. If she doubted his affections, she would only have to think about the sad, deeply personal story he shared with her about his mother. After hearing that, I think the average person would realise they have reached a level of intimacy with this person, who feels that they can share their dark secrets with them. If Hardin had used such a story to manipulate Tessa into feeling closer to him, or worse, had made the story up entirely, then that’s a very twisted individual and Tessa would be right to stay away from him. I just feel that after sharing intimate things with each other, Tessa would ask more questions and not be so quick to feel as deeply let down as she did. What Hardin did was still bad, but I believe that Tessa should have questioned him about it a bit. This just shows how weak their relationship is, if she wasn't willing to question his actions or hear his explanation, or communicate.

There were a couple of scenes that felt a bit ridiculous to me, but again, not as insultingly so as The Kissing Booth or Fifty Shades of Grey. The scene with Tessa’s mum preparing to disown her has already been mentioned. There is also a scene where, in an attempt to get closer with Tessa, Hardin wants to take her to his “special place”. I just want any girls reading this to know that in real life, if a guy you don’t really know wants to take you to a “special place” and then drives you alone to the deserted woods, I'm afraid it's unlikely to work out as well for you as it did for Tessa. In reality, you are most probably going to be murdered.

The scene right after this one takes place in a bar, and I am completely fascinated by what happens with Tessa’s food here. Both Hardin and Tessa order a burger and chips. Tessa returns hers because it didn’t come with ketchup (why didn’t the waitress just bring them a bottle of ketchup?), and then Hardin and Tessa start flirtatiously joking about it like it’s a special joke between them. It’s a little bit hilariously awful. A couple of Hardin’s friends arrive (one of them is Molly, played by Inanna Sarkis, who I found to be the weakest link as Hardin’s bitter ex) and Hardin asks Tessa to leave them for a moment, just as Tessa’s full plate of food has arrived back for her. Tessa leaves to sit at the bar, and never touches her food again. Why wouldn’t she just take her food to the bar with her? So much food appears to be wasted in films and it's sad, but here it's so ridiculous it had me laughing throughout the scene.

Tessa won't eat her own food, though she's happy to have some of Hardin's.

Finally, in one of the films last scenes, the professor who teaches Tessa and Hardin’s English class gives Tessa the essay that Hardin wrote, because she thinks it’s about Tessa. Surely this is a violation of a student’s privacy? What if had been a private piece about Tessa, and not for her?

Ultimately, this film is troubled and longer than its lack of plot needs it to be, particularly as it has multiple long pauses before characters exchange dialogue. It’s sadly not on the level of being anyone’s guilty pleasure. However, the two lead actors can be good, and I hope they are given more to work with in the future, as a sequel is currently in development.

Also, I hope there is justice for Landon, in the form of a good romantic partner on the horizon.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 15, 17, 22, 27, 29, 40, 46, 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60

Total: 18

Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? Chick flick.

Would I recommend this film? No

Quote of the film: “My life before him was so simple and decided. Now after him, there’s just after.” – Tessa, bringing us the facts.

Film rating: 3/10