If you haven’t heard of the movie After, which hit movie theaters in April (and made $69 million worldwide) and Netflix earlier this month, there’s a strong chance you aren’t a female teen. If you have heard of it, you likely have a passionate take about the film that is based on what originally was a fanfiction story about One Direction’s Harry Styles. I am an adult woman with many teen tendencies, with boy bands and romantic comedies being two of the big ones. And that’s why it brings me no joy to report this romance movie is transmitting dangerous messages to the teens (and, um, myself) who are likely fervently rewatching it on the streaming platform.
Like many other films before it, with the Twilight franchise being the number one culprit, After just lovesssss selling teen girls on the message that they too can be the special good girl that tames the bad boy. But what it’s important for young (and old) people to know is that, really, you’re special in the way that *everyone* is special, which means that actually no one is special. Except for Beyoncé, of course.
The film, essentially a 50 Shades lite, stars Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as Hardin, and if a Harry Styles type was their intention, they delivered in spades. Josephine Langford is the adorable and innocent yet awfully plucky Tessa, a college freshman that for some reason is hanging on to a relationship with her hometown sweetheart Noah (Dylan Arnold) who is still a senior in high school, and, honestly, likely gay, though that doesn’t make the fact that she ditches him for the mysterious, broody, deep-starer, Hardin any less inevitable. And while your first instinct might be to totally brush this one aside, know that casting Selma Blair as Tessa’s mom and Peter Gallagher as Hardin’s dad (even though they are of course underused) is only part of what lends this movie any cred.
If you want to point to any flaws, it would purely come from the writing, but there’s no denying its effectiveness. The two young leads clearly deliver on screen what they were instructed to on the page, and they accomplished the one true goal here, which is to emit more chemistry than an exploding volcano at a science fair. At its core, After is simply a marathon of foreplay in between the land mines of daddy issues scattered about and red flags wildly waving in the wind every step of the way.
Tessa first meets Hardin when she’s just returned to her dorm room after showering, complete with dripping wet hair and wrapped in a newly purchased Bed Bath and Beyond towel (probably), while he’s lounging on her roommate’s bed, kicked back in his leather jacket and half reading a novel. It’s a tense, skeptical first meeting, but certainly not the last. The two continue to cross paths, at a party where she’s dared to kiss him but balks, in a literature class where he declares of Pride and Prejudice that “Elizabeth Bennet needs to chill,” a line that both irks and intrigues Tessa — and everyone watching. Have you ever wanted to roll your eyes more…and then turn around immediately to see who would dare utter such a…brilliant statement?
Was I already under the spell that After tried so hard to cast on me within its first act? Because there had already been a lot of glances exchanged, lips nearly brushed, and, likely for these characters, tingles in their underwear. But I wasn’t totally sold yet, as I still wanted to shout at Tessa, “Do not get in a car with someone you’ve never had a full conversation with, and most definitely do not go into the woods and then jump into a lake with him!” But even more, I wanted to watch what happened between them.
And what happened is that both Tessa and I fell victim to Hardin’s captivating ways. While I cannot endorse moving in together (especially during your first semester of college) before you’ve even slept together, I get why she did it (and not just because we gotta move this story along and keep it interesting). After expertly builds the sexual tension between these two: with touches, and kisses (omg these two love making out), and the fact that she, the good girl, challenges him, the bad boy, by being unafraid to stand up to him and drop an “actually” on him on several occasions. But guess what? She’s an intelligent, modern female: she should challenge him, and lots of other people, with her thoughts. It should also be stated here that even though we aren’t necessarily provided too much evidence of it throughout the film, Tessa is clearly the more dynamic character of the two, no matter what Hardin (or really, this film) wants you to believe. He’s as basic a bad boy as it gets.
Not that that curbs any of the sexual tension here, at least until we get to the payoff, which, we all know can never live up to what we’ve built it to be in our minds. When the pair finally do the deed, it’s like two pumps and just a shot of her wide-eyed face before it cuts away.
This interaction was never going to be good for the two of them, but apparently it’s only going to be mediocre at best for us as viewers too. Like, come on, After, don’t make me feel like a perv for wanting to see the eventual bedroom antics — you’ve been building up to this the whole dang time!
But here’s the disclaimer I wish this movie would include for all young people. Just the way they are warned that vaping is bad for their health, no matter how cool or fun it may look, wanting to be the special girl that lands and “tames” the bad boy is the very same. Whether it’s the Surgeon General telling you “this is bad” or Hardin stating “I don’t date,” LISTEN TO THEM. THEY MEAN IT. I fully get why this story, and his British accent, and all the freedom in that off-campus apartment are so compelling, and again, it is HARD to resist. But I promise you, like the eventual sex they have, and even to a degree the conclusion of this film, it is so rarely going to be as great as you hope.
After is fun to watch for adults who have gotten past this fantasy, and whose brains have both fully developed and been let down by a variety of good and bad boys, but dangerous for those less cynical, less jaded minds that would find this journey aspirational (though there is a sequel on the way). Sneaking around after closing time to cuddle and read books in the library and subsequently running away from a security guard, trying to get your hands on the journal into which your boyfriend won’t stop secretively scribbling, sharing a sudsy bubble bath, are all activities many college graduates would logically agree are not nearly as sexy as this movie wants you to believe they are (okay, the library thing does sound kind of fun minus the running part), but while you’re watching, well, it sure is convincing.
While not a perfect film, After has made progress in certain areas: there’s just enough technology present to keep the story modern without being annoying. And speaking of, Tessa as a character, likely with the addition of Langford’s charm, is not as much of an eye-roll as she would’ve been made out to be in previous films. She, along with Fiennes-Tiffin, are very good at doing what they are supposed to do in these roles — so much so that it’s not just the teen viewers that will be interested to see them in future projects.
We’ve seen enough of this bad boy falls for nice girl theme, which has to start feeling outdated at some point soon. Ultimately, it’s not quite yet because I’m almost annoyed by how much I enjoyed this movie — and yes, totally fell for it. To the teen girls out there that feel the same about After — appreciate it, but don’t aspire to it.
