After

After

Starring Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Khadijha Red Thunder, Shane Paul McGhie

Directed by Jenny Gage

The Story:
Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) has lived her whole life basically secluded from the real world, raised by her mother Carol (Selma Blair) and only having one boyfriend, Noah (Dylan Arnold).  When she goes off to college, her mother is shocked to see Tessa's roommate Steph (Khadijha Red Thunder) smoking pot, and wants Tessa to get a new room - but Tessa reassures her mother that she won't fall into temptation.

One day she meets Steph's friend Hardin (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin), and he exudes a bad boy image with a deep underlying intelligence that equal parts attracts and repels Tessa, as the two constantly butt heads and come close to kissing.  Finally Hardin opens up to Tessa, and she to him, and the two begin a romantic relationship to the chagrin of her mother and basically all Hardin's friends.  As their relationship blooms and blossoms, a shocking discovery could threaten the young love-birds and put an early end to their happily ever after.

The Synopsis:
Right away I'll easily say this type of movie isn't geared for me, but rather a young teenage female crowd who's too young to attend the R-rated "Fifty Shades of Grey" film, but wants to find their bad boy happily ever after.  Based off a book by Anna Todd (who pretty much resembles "Fifty Shades" "author" E.L. James - and yes, I know I put quotations around the word "author"), "After" is basically a PG-13 version of many adult lonely housewives' favorite novel and film, and both share the dubious distinction of being nothing more than smut films, but even that's giving "After" a bit too much credit - it's not even smut, it's plain boring.  Another thing the two have in common is that they were both works of fanfiction - "Fifty Shades" about "Twilight," while "After" was written as a fan fiction about the British pop boy band One Direction (the characters are even named after them: Hardin = Harry Styles, Zed = Zayn Malik, Landon = Liam Payne, Nate = Niall Horan, Logan = Louis Tomlinson) - and proves that fan fiction should never see the light of day outside a fan fiction-based website.

The film follows Tessa as she goes from her sheltered teenage life to the wide world of college - a world where she's introduced to pot smokers (GASP!), people covered in tattoos (GASP!), and who go to wild parties and drink (GASP!).  She doesn't seem phased by all of this until she meets Hardin (whose name alone draws unintentional laughter, since it closely resembles two naughty words put together...think about it, or don't), who's also a tattoo-covered bad boy who doesn't believe in love but deep down believes in love but doesn't show it because he's been hurt by a mean old father who was distant in his life.  Tessa thinks she can fix him, or maybe she doesn't, I don't really know - anyway, the two begin a torrid, no-holds-barred makeout affair where all they basically do is touch and kiss, so if you're looking for some nudity (shame on you!) then look somewhere else.  But if you're looking for the most epic love story ever told, with two stellar actors who deliver their lines with gusto and grit, and who emote their emotions through their expressions like pros...well, look somewhere else as well.

The film is so cliched that reviewing the film feels like a cliche, as it checks off every box you'd expect to find in the most simplest films of this genre, so much so there's an obvious allusion to how Tessa and Hardin are like the modern day "Pride and Prejudice" - but not with zombies, unless you count Jane Austen spinning in her grave.  There's the traditional good girl meet bad boy, where they realize their opposites are what attracts them, promise to never break up, and eventually come into contact with an event that could indeed tear them apart - and we as an audience don't care one bit.

Josephine Langford plays Tessa with about as much energy as a lamp that hasn't been plugged in - she spends most of the film uttering one-liners, staring blankly at the screen or other people, and during one hilarious moment almost gets painted into a wall that she's standing in front of because she's so invisible that the painter didn't even notice she was there (that didn't actually happen, but that's about as big of an impression she left).

Equally, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (who's the nephew of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, and who obviously proves that talent doesn't run in the family) plays bad boy Hardin with about as much intensity as a person watching water boil.  He broods seductively at the camera, never cracks a smile or inflection of voice, and more-or-less exists purely because he embodies that bad boy persona but also having a heart.  Whether or not that heart is actually beating is up for interpretation.

Even though "After" is billed as a drama, I actually found it quite horrifying, if not for the fact that a sequel is in the works, and we'll have to sit through another misadventure of our least favorite star-crossed lovers ever...even "Twilight" had a better love story.

The Summary:
The only thing I could think of doing after "After" is trying to find a way to forget what I just saw, but thankfully a few minutes afterward my memory was erased by itself - the only residual memory is it being full of terrible performances and a PG-version of "Fifty Shades."

The Score: D-