Directed By Jenny Gage

Starring – Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Selma Blair, Josephine Langford

The Plot – Based on Anna Todd’s novel of the same name, the film follows Tessa (Langford), a dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart, as she enters her first semester in college. Armed with grand ambitions for her future, her guarded world opens up when she meets the dark and mysterious Hardin Scott (Tiffin), a magnetic, brooding rebel who makes her question all she thought she knew about herself and what she wants out of life.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some college partying

POSITIVES

– Perhaps the most surprising thing about “After” is that it is at least technically sound in the presentation department. Soft, subtle lighting cast against beautiful scenery, compliments of cinematographer Adam Silver, and a tight precision in editing, which constantly keeps the flow of the movie moving at comfortable levels, are two of the beneficial aspects that this film indulges in, and proves that style was certainly heavier than substance in this vapid delivery of teenage fan fiction. If anything, the film will perhaps stand as a stepping stone for much bigger works by this production team, which simply feel far too advanced for anything it combines with in this movie that weighs down the law of its returns.

– A hidden narrative. One aspect of the film that is briefly touched upon, but never fully realized, is the sexual awakening of Tessa that springs forth her college curiosity. The aspect of first love’s for young women not living up to everything you expected, will offer strong relatability to the youths that take this film in, and even give them a general outline of what not to do when in that similar situation. In this regard, the film garners just enough responsibility to take Tessa down this road of self-identifying, and in turn carves out just enough ambiguity for beyond-the-screen companions right by her side. Very few films capture the complexity associated with love at such an early age, but “After” tackles it head on, juggling enough social commentary about the dating world along the way to give it substantial reasoning for its existence.

NEGATIVES

– No pulse. As far as modern day romances go, the bond between Harden and Tessa might be the single worst that I’ve seen in terms of chemistry or remote spark that helps convey their attraction. First of all, these are both terrible people in terms of how they treat everyone else around them, the dialogue between them is certainly nothing that makes us the audience feel weak in the knees, and the romantic scenes lack the kind of passion necessary to feel satisfaction in their mutual finding. I can imagine that watching a brother and sister romantically involved couldn’t be far off from what we’re presented, because there’s nothing fun or remotely engaging about two people who the movie wants to log-jam into fitting so perfectly together, yet what transpires in 97 minutes between them couldn’t be any further from the truth.

– Teenage fan fiction doesn’t translate well to the silver screen. For those who don’t know, this story is originally based off of One Direction (Yes, that One Direction) fan-fiction, that was originally switched up to instead depict every day people. As for the film itself, it can’t escape these obvious cliches that make it still feel like it’s being commanded by an adolescent girl. The irrational decisions, the over-abundance of easy listening like The Fray or Avril Lavigne, the barrage of red flags that are casually ignored by our ignorant protagonist, and the way the scenes stay with Tessa 100% of the time. It’s a modern day teenage fantasy that caters to the slimmest of audiences, and the ones it does haven’t lived through the kind of situations depicted to fully understand how maniacal they are.

– The cast. Nobody in the lead cast is redeemable, and what’s even more tragic about this is film veterans like Peter Gallagher or Selma Blair are subjected to such waste. I hate trashing actors who are trying to master their craft, but the reality is Langford and Tiffin wouldn’t be cast as even supporting character’s in a halfway decent film, due to their overall lack of commitment in each line read, as well as the flat emotional registry that lets each scene of connection to the audience slip away. I understand that the roles called for these kids to be introvert’s somewhat, but the complete lack of charisma made each interaction slug along with the kind of performance depth of a Charmin bathroom tissue commercial. Even Christian Grey and Anastasia committed themselves to the ridiculousness of the situation. These two never made the most of their most likely one and only chance.

– Redundancy in character’s. There are too many of the same kind of character personalities in this movie, and what’s even worse is the exposition between the leads could easily be summarized in a Wikipedia plot summary. For Harden, adjectives like “Quiet”, “brutish”, and “Bad Boy” could be inserted, but very rarely a character outline for who you see before you. If I’m not picking on Harden, then it’s Tessa’s cryptic roommate, who is introduced to the film early on, and then rarely tapped into again, and it speaks levels to the problems associated with sticking with two character’s for so long that you often forget that there’s a world that exists beyond them. That complete lack of initiative made it so difficult for me to invest in a single person, and even care remotely for what will become of them.

– Watered down rating. I myself haven’t read the book that this movie is based on, but I did read a material summary that gave me the finer points of the story, and immediately I can say that PG-13 was not the right way to go to remain faithful to the literary origins. The rating is obviously to cater to more younger fans to feed into the profits, but those kind of kids shouldn’t be watching this movie anyway, and the ones who are old enough to are left with deflated content that feels like an after school special, instead of something that is compared to being the teenage version of Fifty Shades of Grey. When you look at that property, you understand that there’s no way it could be done with anything less than an R-rating, and that’s the case here, where vital scenes of sexual interaction are shot so tightly that you don’t properly register the kind of body language that comes with such passion.

– Not even unintentional humor can save us. The best parts of movies like these, often defined as so bad they’re good, is the ability to laugh at the struggle of script and filmmaking incompetence, but there’s never anything in the way of lunacy in the former, or amateur in the latter, and it makes the sit that much more intolerable because of it. What’s left is a vacuum of entertainment-sucking where even unintentional humor wipes away the sands of therapeutic cinema for relief. “After” is one of the worst films of 2019 in this regard, and if there’s much more like this, it will be a bleak year of pretentious filmmaking that inspires a new generation.

– Padding out time. I mentioned earlier that the pacing is acceptable enough because of the on-the-nose editing that remains consistent, but 97 minutes for a movie with this much repetition in musical montages or date montages between our two leads, makes me feel like fifteen minutes could’ve easily been trimmed from this movie to not make it feel so obvious in reaching a time destination. To remain at 97 minutes, perhaps more character development, or a bonding of relationships outside of our two lovebird protagonists to up the stakes once the conflict’s start could’ve offered a satisfaction of variety that could’ve also done wonders for spicing up what is otherwise 80% a mundane screenplay. For my money, these two meet and fall in love far too quickly in the film, and I feel like more restraint could’ve better planned for those eventual third act twists that take a lifetime to arrive.

– Speaking of which, the curiosity that I had with about a half hour left did present a fine line of interest as to what kind of direction this story is headed, but sadly I was letdown by the film’s flimsy final message and closing sequences that had my eyes hurting from rolling so much. Without spoiling anything, this film could’ve had so much fun with Harden’s character, in how he responds to the foundation’s in his life that are crumbling around him, but the twist comes and goes, feeling every bit as inconsequential if two people could sit down and talk, as it does contradictory with the film’s closing moments. What’s even more frustrating is there is a push for a sequel, which will inevitably go unfulfilled, but leaves the ending of this film feeling anti-climatic because of final imagery that leans one particular way.

My Grade: 2/10 or F-