Netflixable? “After Everything” might be “The Final Chapter”
The beautiful young thing takes a moment, sailing a half million dollar sloop past a cliffside villa on coastal Portugal, to turn to the male model next to her, point out that villa and say “That’s my dream.”
We don’t know how Natalie (Mimi Keene) came by that pricey to buy/ruinous to keep yacht in Lisbon, where she apparently makes a living as a wedding dress…saleslady? We haven’t quite figured out why this lovely Brit — who moved to Portugal to “get away from herself” and maybe the sex video the womanizing creep-turned-hit-novelist Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) spilled onto the Internet — has forgiven hunky, alcoholic narcissist Hardin.
But in “After Everything: The Final Chapter,” the third fourth FIFTH film in this vapid “After” sex and money comes LOVE LOVE LOVE series of moon-eyed Millennial romances, we’ve learned not to ask “Why?” or “How?” or “What’s the attraction, here?”
They’re just young and thin and beautiful and monied, and that’ll have to do.
Somehow, Netflix and assorted directors, screenwriters and a rotating cast of supporting players have managed to get five films out of Anna Todd’s IA (Immature Adult) Fiction novel “Before” and make Andrew Garfield Lite, young Mr. Fiennes Tiffin, a romantic hearthrob for the ages.
This time, our hero (ahem) is fighting writer’s block and the loss of his beloved Tessa (Josephine Langford) to the betrayal of turning their love affair into a hit novel. She’s barely acknowledging his texts, and he’s barely keeping it together — drinking, swinging into a menage a trois with his publishing house’s editor (Rosa Escoda), insulting his mother (Louise Lombard) and stepfather figure…I think (Stephen Moyer).
There’s nothing for it but to jet down to Lisbon to start the process of “making amends” with Natalie. But not before a little “Mile High Club” action with a stewardess. Well, that’s just a fantasy and well… baby steps, right?
The movie is one long mope around Portugal as Hardin dodges calls from his publisher, which may want his advance back if he can’t whip up a new draft, and from his old friend Landon.
Money and affluence and leisure are birthrights to this crew, even if you are slumming it in a tony wedding dress shop. Narcissism is a given. But, you guys, Hardin is suffering.
“Nothing matters in this world is she’s not in it,” Hardin declares between slugs of whisky and trips to the beach, the cliffs, the finest restaurants and bars Portugal has to offer.
The lazy affluence of this script by writer-director Castille Landon, means no real locations are identified, no scenic spot is appreciated and nobody depicted isn’t beach-body ready to peel off this or that article of clothing for some PG-13 grinding that barely merits an R-rating.
Maybe the “R” is for the hilarious fistfight/beat-down between the male models, whose gym visits and tattoos tell us how tough they are. Hardin’s hardcore enought to head-butt? Do tell?
“After Everything,” which follows “After Ever Happy,” “After We Fell,” “After We Collided” and just plain “After,” isn’t particularly hateful. But one does wonder what this piffle is doing to impressionable young minds.
If so many other generations have problems with Millennials’ work ethic, values etc., maybe it’s a steady diet of vacuous, shiny, unearned affluence like this that is messing with their heads.
