After Ever Happy

Director: Castille Landon
Starring: Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Louise Lombard, Rob Estes, Chance Perdomo, Mira Sorvino
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 119 mins. Reviewed in Sep 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Mature themes, sex scenes and frequent coarse language

The fourth film in the After series, this one includes deaths in the family, tensions between Tessa and Hardin, and questions how they can be reconciled.

This is the fourth film based on the After series written by Anna Todd. The films have the same leading cast throughout. Anna Todd, born 1989, was writing the first novel in her 20s, first publishing in 2014. While they might not necessarily be categorised as Young Adult novels, with the author’s age and experience, they fall into that group.

The novels had many fans. The films had some fans but there was not universal acknowledgement. Perhaps, at this point, it is important for this reviewer to state that he belongs to the non-fans.

Perhaps, in writing for younger audiences, Anna Todd and the screenwriters have opted for television soap-opera style, in language and dialogue, and the use of close-ups, heightened emotional moments – ‘I was drowning – but I couldn’t swim against the tide’.

While Langford is sympathetic in many ways as Tessa, caught up in a romantic entanglement with Hardin, (Fiennes Tiffin), it is Hardin who is the difficult character to take. He is British, enunciates in a precise and determined upper-class style which does not quite fit his character. In fact, he comes across as moody, truculent, angry, self-pitying and petulant (at least). It is difficult to find sympathy for him despite all his woes, the discovery of deep secrets in his family and his inability to cope with these, in his treatment of Tessa and then in his pursuit of her.

As with any soap opera, emotion is to the fore, the dramatic and melodramatic writing for the characters, some heightened moments of passion, both anger and love.

This film and its predecessor were made back-to-back in Bulgaria during lockdown. There is a further film for the series as this one closes with ‘to be continued…’. It will not be based on a specific novel by Anna Todd and, the distributor waiting until close to release date to specify a title.