After We Fell

After We Fell
Starring Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Carter Jenkins, Louise Lombard
Directed by Castille Landon

The young adult novel-to-film craze has seemingly subsided in recent years, with memories of "The Hunger Games," "Divergent," and "Twilight" slowly dwindling from our minds. While they were all the rage back in the 10s, they seemingly have died out in recent years, and any attempt to re-vitalize it has fallen flat, with hardly a mention of their creations. Not even the once-hyped "Divergent" series got a film conclusion due to dwindling returns, so it still baffles me that Anna Todd's "steamy" (in quotes, because if the films are any indications, the novels are as hot as a January morning on the North Pole) novel series "After" continues getting the big-screen treatment year after year, as all of them are utterly terrible and the first two outings ("After," and "After We Collided") have ended up near the bottom of my worst films of their respective years. Maybe she made a non-metaphorical deal with the devil to get all her works turned into sensual R-rated films (except the first, which got an apparently dreaded PG-13 rating, yet somehow is still the "best" of them), because I have no excuse as to how these not-even-smut films manage to get made while we'll never see a true ending to Tris's ending (except, you know, if you read the book - which I won't).

Picking up where "After We Collided" ended, Tessa (Josephine Langford) has just found her drunken father is homeless and is now staying with her and her boyfriend Hardin (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin), to the chagrin of Hardin, because he has to be brooding and upset about something all the time. The father departs and Tessa tells Hardin she's moving to Seattle for a job opportunity, and Hardin is brooding and upset about it. Then they go to a restaurant where Hardin flirts with an old flame and Tessa gets jealous while hunky waiter Robert (Carter Jenkins) takes their order, making Hardin jealous. Then they have sex. Then they fight about something. Then they have sex again. Then they fight again. Then they fight about something again. Then they have sex again. Then Hardin finds out a shocking revelation about his family, and Tessa stands by him through his tough time. Too bad no one stands with us during our tough time of watching this.

"After We Fell" somehow manages to disappoint on every level, and even creates new levels for it to disappoint with. With a movie being R-rated, and one centered solely on the hormonal needs of a lonely housewife with an odd infatuation with One Direction, you'd expect at least the sex scenes to be steamy, but the chemistry between Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin is as red-hot as the chemistry between Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy (HA! political humor!). The dialogue during it is also cringe-worthy, as most notably when they're getting it on in a gym after Hardin has a nightmare that Tessa was banging the waiter and got mad at her about it (something we all go through from time-to-time), she tells him to "F(explitive) me until you forget your dream." With that I forgot my dream of hoping that there would be something worth salvaging from this Titanic-level mess, but the ship's already sunk and the bodies are just drifting on the water (too soon?). Yet that's not the end - "After Ever Happy" (seriously, Anna Todd must've just let her child rearrange magnetic letters on the refrigerator door to come up with her titles) will be released in 2022, meaning these poor victims will return as zombies.

Speaking of the actors...they're just terrible. Josephine Langford had some hope back in "After" to be able to rebound from a bad film and actually create a real name for herself in cinema, but as she continually does this films (I can only think she's doing these under duress, with the multiple different directors holding a gun to her head, or maybe Anna Todd keeps threatening to throw her into a vat of acid), she sheds any sort of acting cred she once possessed, and with each passing film you see the light slowly dwindling from her eyes, and probably when it's all said and done she'll just shuffle her way to the Actor's Early Retirement Home to live out the rest of her days as the shell of a person she once was. She doesn't even try anymore to form any sort of connection with Tiffin's Hardin, as she literally goes from hating him to loving him and back and forth, proving something that should be taken as a cautionary tale - you can never "fix" your partner, even though she continually tries.

Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (I'm sure his uncles Joseph and Ralph wish he would drop the "Fiennes" from his name) continues his robotic performance as Hardin, once again turning the switch on from brooding and jealous to angry and bitter and back again, as he too has nowhere to go with the story. He also looks like he's paining his way through the film, and someone needs to get online and free these captive actors from their torture (#FreeFiennesandLangford should be trending, and even that's as uninspired as the films themselves).

The "After" films are supposed to showcase what a toxic relationship looks like, yet somehow it manages to glamorize it and make viewers want that kind of relationship, and I can only scratch my head in wonder as to why this happens. These two have been together for a few weeks in movie-time, and they've broken up more times than I can count, and made up even more. They have a childish relationship where each one gets insanely jealous over the other for the stupidest things (such as Hardin getting jealous of the waiter taking Tessa's order, or later in the film when they're on a "break" and Tessa calls Hardin and hears a girl in the background, immediately hanging up like a twelve-year-old before Hardin calls back and tells her he's at a gym and she's his trainer). I have no idea what makes these two seem to be the "it" couple, but obviously I don't get it. Probably because I'm not a hormonal teen wanting to turn the bad boy into a respectable man about town. Or probably because I got a brain, something that the two main characters lack even put together. But I guess my brain isn't working all that properly because I continue to sit through these "films" (albeit with my friends, so it's more fun) that aren't even "so bad they're good," but "so bad I want to stab myself in the eyes with rusty spoons."

Again, back to the story - there isn't one. It's just a hodgepodge scenes of Tessa and Hardin over-reacting to simple situations, breaking up, then having makeup sex. There's no advancement whatsoever with these characters, and even the "shock" ending doesn't come as much of a shock as it does a welcome relief in the fact that you know the credits will soon be rolling, and you can put this awful mess out of your mind - until "Happily Ever After" - I mean, "After Ever Happy" (ugh) brings the films to a less-than-satisfying conclusion.

As these films continue to shamble like the walking dead, "After We Fell" continues the moronic tale of "love" between two characters who both need psychiatric help instead of repeating the consistent cycle that they find themselves in.

The Score: D-