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After We Collided Review: This Romantic Drama Is So Bad, It's Fun
The sequel to After, After We Collided isn't the first follow-up movie based on a book that was initially based on fanfiction - that distinction would go to Fifty Shades of Grey sequel, Fifty Shades Darker - but it certainly digs into its roots and offers its audience exactly what they want. Based on the After book series by Anna Todd, which she originally published as fanfiction about One Direction member Harry Styles, After We Collided continues the love story established in After, but amps up the drama even more than its already melodramatic predecessor. After We Collided is riddled with cliches and tired young adult tropes, but its dramatic romance and laughable dialogue offers some escapist fun.
The movie picks up one month following the conclusion of After, in which the tumultuous relationship between Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) ended when it was revealed Hardin slept with Tessa for a bet. In After We Collided, Tessa is attempting to move on, starting an internship at Vance Publishing, where she meets the respectable and by-the-numbers Trevor Matthews (Dylan Sprouse). However, Tessa and Hardin can't stay away from each other, and get pulled back into each other's orbit, first when Tessa calls Hardin while drunk, then when Tessa learns Hardin hasn't told his mother Trish (Louise Lombard) about their breakup and agrees to play along that they're still together. Their renewed relationship hits some roadblocks, though, as it becomes apparent Tessa struggles to trust Hardin after his betrayal, and it's unclear if Hardin is truly dedicated to working through his issues.
On After We Collided, Todd takes over writing duties after not contributing to the After screenplay, penning the script alongside newcomer Mario Celaya. While this may make for a more faithful adaptation of her book of the same name, it also leads to certain lines of dialogue that would feel trite and ridiculous even in fanfiction, where readers are likely to give writers more leeway. (At one point, a character says to Tessa, "Oh shoot, we forgot to buy you underwear.") The overall story, too, is full of cliches, including the addition of Trevor to create a love triangle - except this love triangle is half-baked at best, with Trevor set up as the overly obvious foil to Hardin, then almost immediately abandoned for a montage of sex scenes between the two leads. There's also too many tropes to count, including a cat fight between Tessa and one of the instigators of the drama in After - not to mention a whole lot of slut-shaming that feels out of place in a modern college setting. Ultimately, After We Collided isn't the most well-crafted story or script, but it has one thing going for it at least: Hardin and Tessa's love.
More accurately, After We Collided has Fiennes Tiffin and Langford's chemistry bolstering the tension of the movie and creating an entertaining, if not necessarily deep, love story. But while the PG-13 After featured the pair in relatively tame situations to show their blossoming relationship, After We Collided is rated R, and director Roger Kumble (Cruel Intentions) makes use of that rating to feature plenty of steamy sex scenes. To their credit, Langford and Fiennes Tiffin are what make these scenes in After We Collided as sexy as they are, pulling off the physical side of Hardin and Tessa's relationship. As for the rest of it, the actors gamely deliver all the clunky dialogue they're given, though it doesn't quite work despite their efforts. In terms of the rest of the cast, Sprouse gives a surprisingly funny performance as the straight-laced Trevor, clearly the only one in on the fact that these movies are meant to be overdramatic fodder. Everyone else does what they can with what little they're given - this is Hardin and Tessa's world after all.
After We Collided is by no means a "good" movie, but it is a film tailored to appeal to teenage girls, and teenage girls deserve their own fair share of not-good movies tailored to their interests. After We Collided has all the ingredients to entice its audience: Attractive actors, a torrid romance, a good soundtrack and plenty of twists and turns - and it delivers on what it promises. After We Collided is not meant to be some highbrow drama, it's meant to be pure escapist fun - and in that regard, it wholly succeeds, taking viewers on a melodramatic rollercoaster coaster ride and allowing them to forget their own problems for an hour and 45 minutes. Even all the cliches and tropes, as tired as they may be, are comforting in their familiarity (there's a reason romance stories all follow the same basic formula). So while After We Collided may not be a "good" movie, that doesn't mean it's any less worthy of existing.
In terms of who should give After We Collided a watch, fans of Todd's books and the first After movie are no doubt at the top of the list. While After We Collided gives up some of the more nuanced themes that were present in After, such as Tessa's coming of age story (and exploration of her sexuality), it does lean more heavily into the romantic escapism of the series. As such, After We Collided is by no means a must-watch for anyone uninterested in the story, or those who watched the first film and felt it too shallow. Still, those who go into After We Collided with realistic expectations about it being simple escapism may have a fun time - even if it's in the vein of being so bad, it's fun.
After We Collided is now playing in theaters and available via video-on-demand. It is 105 minutes long and rated R for sexual content, language throughout and some drug material.
