Based on the (disturbingly) popular Wattpad story of the same name by Anna Todd, After is the result of One Direction fanfiction gone wrong. How this received enough of a following to warrant a $14 million film adaptation is beyond me. There are so many screenwriters with high quality work but are rejected in order to please horny preteens. That, friends, is where Hollywood done messed up.
Tessa Young has always been pressured to be the perfect daughter by her mother, and when she gets to college, she meets bad boy Hardin Scott and becomes frustratingly infatuated with him while still with her high school senior boyfriend Noah. Following the generic approach, Noah discovers Tessa's infidelity and breaks things off, leaving her able to pursue the moody, emotionally constipated Hardin.
The rest of the so-called plot falls more in line with 50 Shades of Grey with some Cruel Intentions mixed in than anything else. For what little it's worth, the actors do a fine enough job with what they're given. Josephine Langford is a lot like her elder sister Katherine (Hannah Baker) but more apathetic. Hero Fiennes Tiffin (nephew of Voldemort), perhaps because of his aforementioned emotionally clogged leading man, makes the viewer, or at the very least me, feel gross. Fortunately, the two leads are roughly the same age.
The music is as basic to any mediocre teen romance flick, but this time, there's a bland cover of Avril Lavigne's unforgettable "Complicated". It's well-made, although it doesn't deserve it. Everyone involved deserves better. Maybe not the writer or director though.
Tessa Young has always been pressured to be the perfect daughter by her mother, and when she gets to college, she meets bad boy Hardin Scott and becomes frustratingly infatuated with him while still with her high school senior boyfriend Noah. Following the generic approach, Noah discovers Tessa's infidelity and breaks things off, leaving her able to pursue the moody, emotionally constipated Hardin.
The rest of the so-called plot falls more in line with 50 Shades of Grey with some Cruel Intentions mixed in than anything else. For what little it's worth, the actors do a fine enough job with what they're given. Josephine Langford is a lot like her elder sister Katherine (Hannah Baker) but more apathetic. Hero Fiennes Tiffin (nephew of Voldemort), perhaps because of his aforementioned emotionally clogged leading man, makes the viewer, or at the very least me, feel gross. Fortunately, the two leads are roughly the same age.
The music is as basic to any mediocre teen romance flick, but this time, there's a bland cover of Avril Lavigne's unforgettable "Complicated". It's well-made, although it doesn't deserve it. Everyone involved deserves better. Maybe not the writer or director though.