Director: Castille Landon
Writer: Sharon Soboil
Stars: Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Chance Perdomo, Stephen Moyer, and Mira Sorvino.
Synopsis: As a shocking truth about a couple’s families emerges, the two lovers discover they are not so different from each other. Tessa is no longer the sweet, simple, good girl she was when she met Hardin — any more than he is the cruel, moody boy she fell so hard for.
*Warning: The following review may contain spoilers for After Ever Happy.*
Another year, another After movie. If you’ve been following the press tour for this one, stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Josephine Langford are trying to convince you that this is the franchise’s last installment. It would make sense since this is the last book of Anna Todd’s Wattpad-to-novel series, save for a prequel novella titled “Before”. However, it seems that the movie franchise has no end in sight, as the latest chapter in the uneventful saga, titled After Ever Happy, seemingly randomly ends with “to be continued…”
I wasn’t the only one who blurted out a WHAT?!? at my screening the moment it appeared. What is there to continue? What other facets of Tessa (Langford) and Hardin’s (Fiennes Tiffin) lives are there to tell? All they have been doing for the past three films is yell at each other, break up, make out, get back together, yell at each other, break up, make out, get back together, yell at each other, break—well, you get the idea. You’d think this one would be different since it was revealed in last year’s After We Fell that publisher Christian (Stephen Moyer) is Hardin’s real dad, but no.
That “huge” revelation gets brushed off within the movie’s first ten minutes. Hardin doesn’t accept Christian as his father and tries to burn his house down (because I guess that’s what edgy teenagers do), until he arrives and decides to forget about it, while Christian lets him go. It is what it is, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Then the rest of the movie is nothing but a will they/won’t they challenge between Hardin and Tessa, as they keep dumping each other, and then getting back together by having steamy bouts of sex which immediately recall Tommy Wiseau’s The Room: kitschy pop blares out of the speakers, while the characters engage in the most flaccid form of sexual tension possible. Honestly, think the spiral staircase sequence from The Room, and you’ve got your After Ever Happy sex scenes.
It’s a major problem when both leads have little to no chemistry together. It doesn’t help that both characters are horrible people in their own right. Tessa only thinks about herself, while Hardin is just a bloated, erratic mess. Throughout viewing the franchise, I kept asking myself, “Who would ever want to be with such a hothead?” Anytime Tessa literally speaks to another man, Hardin lashes out at them and starts a brawl. Why? Because he loves Tessa so much that the mere thought of her with anyone else (even Hardin’s half-brother Landon, played by Chance Perdomo) drives him mad. And then he yells TESSA (!!!) and how much he loves her while consistently saying the F-bomb every two seconds. Rinse and repeat until the movie decides to go “to be continued…”
The only thought that would race in my mind throughout After Ever Happy was that Tessa would finally dump Hardin once and for all, even if the character does his best to “reshape” himself. But like a virus, it always comes back whenwe least expect it. He’s the cinematic equivalent of COVID-19. Every time we think, “oh, thank God it’s over,” it roars back with a brand-new mutation to latch ourselves to our bodies again. And just like the pandemic, which currently has no end in sight and makes up a brand new sequel for the “Afternators,” the After franchise never wants to end and will retread the sameplot (if there is any) elements to make as much money as possible until audiences grow tired of Tessa and Hardin’s unnecessary problems they create in their tumultuous relationship. Because guess what? They will end up together, even amidst their constant lashing out.
It’s particularly frustrating to see Stephen Moyer and Mira Sorvino dragged into this mess because they’re talented actors who deserve better. Thankfully, they’re not in the movie for very long, and their limited performances cannot lift After Ever Happy from being the dreadful bore it is. We learn nothing new from the characters, both Langford (and her Sue Storm from Fant4stic wig) and Fiennes Tiffin feel like they belong in two different movies, with no chemistry attached to their arcs, and the movie is an entirely cyclical affair based on Tessa and Hardin dumping each other and then becoming a couple again through sex. It’s the exact same thing as the last three movies, and I cannot possibly fathom sitting through another one of those again. Though one thing is clear, both Tessa and Hardin need therapy. And fast.
Grade: F
