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Film Review: 'After We Collided'

An aggravating sequel to a tepid teen romance that comes with a flood of problematic tropes.

By Trevor WellsPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
Top Story - August 2021
17

It's been a month since Tessa Young's (Josephine Langford) first love came to a screeching halt. While her romance with Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) started hot and heavy, learning that Hardin was initially using her for a bet broke Tessa's heart and sent the young lovers drifting apart. While Tessa has been preoccupying herself with her new publishing internship, Hardin has been nursing his heartache with alcohol and desperately looking for a way to get Tessa to forgive him. So when Tessa drunkenly calls Hardin while out at a club with work friends, Hardin comes bursting back into Tessa's life.

While still hurt over Hardin's betrayal, Tessa can't help but fall back into the allure of what she and Hardin shared. But as Tessa and Hardin try to move forward together, old problems rear their ugly heads and new ones test their resolve to make their relationship work. Will this unlikely couple rise above the odds?

As you might recall, I stated in my review of the first chapter of the Anna Todd-penned After saga that the film adaptation was significantly less problematic than the source material. It would appear Todd wasn't happy with that assessment, as according to IMDB, she promised her fans on social media that the sequels would "stay truer to the books." As such, After We Collided goes out of its way to make up for all the toxicity that was missing from After. In the first movie, Hardin Scott was an aloof and moderately creepy douchebag who at least showed the occasional sign of vulnerability and compassion. Here? He's a possessive, overly entitled, emotionally volatile alcoholic--among other unsavory qualities. After may not have given you any reason to believe Tessa and Hardin are right for each other, but After We Collided provides a smorgasbord of reasons why they're positively wrong for each other.

The first 20-30 minutes of the movie gives us one of the bigger reasons: Tessa's life is much better when she doesn't have Hardin to deal with. After the frustrating final shot of After is revealed to be a dream of Hardin's, we see where Tessa has wound up after the breakup. She landed an internship at a publishing company, is doing work that she loves, and is quick to make friends with her new co-workers and associates. These first minutes, while slow, are at least fun to watch for how happier and more confident Tessa is from the last time we saw her. It's also here that we meet Trevor Matthews, Tessa's new co-worker turned friend. Dylan Sprouse is easily the most charming new member of the cast, making Trevor an uncomplicatedly adorkable guy who genuinely cares about Tessa. He also lacks Hardin's newly acquired qualities and is one of the few people in the film to definitively call Hardin a toxic person and warn Tessa that her relationship with him isn't healthy. We also get to meet boss Christian Vance and his girlfriend (Tessa's co-worker) Kimberly. Not only do Charlie Weber and Candice King give charming performances, but Vance and Kimberly's relationship--from what little we see of it--is a wholesome contrast to the fragile house of cards that is Hardin and Tessa's "bond."

Had After We Collided gone down the path of Tessa coming to realize for herself how bad Hardin is for her, this might've made for a better movie. Instead, we have to watch as Tessa falls back into a cycle of drama after reuniting with Hardin, with Trevor barely figuring into the story at all. It's a waste of Sprouse's great performance and is just one of many issues to be had with this story. As I said, Hardin Scott is back and ready to make up for all the toxicity he didn't get a chance to show in After. You know a movie is going down a troublesome path when the first thing its rich male lead does is snap at a homeless man for trying to ask him something. It's even worse if it's followed immediately by the White female lead getting an Uber ride from a horrifically dated Sassy Black Woman stereotype. It's also very ironic that the movie opens with Hardin giving a quote that he admits is pretentious and overdramatic, only to continue to be pretentious by likening his and Tessa's "love story" to that of Shakespeare and Jane Austen. You can just feel all the literary greats that Hardin namedrops in this scene turning over in their graves from being compared to this schlock.

Hardin's first interactions with Tessa are even more repulsive to watch. Those interactions include: tracking down Tessa using her phone, forcing his way into her hotel room, trying to assault Trevor due to thinking he had sex with Tessa (Hardin doesn't even try to deny the fact that he feels entitled to police his ex-girlfriend's romantic life), and having sex with the heavily drunk Tessa. The fact that he does that last thing after arrogantly accusing Trevor of trying to take advantage of Tessa makes it all the more disgusting. In fact, just about everything regarding Hardin's renewed relationship with Tessa feels gross and off-putting, with Hardin having none of the softer moments he had in the first movie. Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin's flimsy chemistry from After is similarly non-existent. And while both of their performances are--for better or worse--less restrained and more entertaining, neither can do much with the bland and unlikable characters they're forced to play. In addition to all of Hardin's defects of character, Tessa has her own terrible moments throughout her arc of meekly allowing Hardin to disrupt her life again.

Even an initially bearable new character gets dragged into unlikability by the story: Hardin's mother Trish. Louise Lombard gives a fine performance as Hardin's sugary sweet mom, though the way her backstory is handled and the way Trish addresses her son's issues leave a lot to be desired. First off, it seems the movie likes to throw Hardin's childhood trauma in our faces in desperate attempts to make him likable. But even worse, the script takes Trish's traumatic assault experience and puts the focus on how it impacted Hardin, with only one scene briefly putting the focus on Trish where it belongs. And despite calling attention to how unstable and damaged Hardin is, Trish still insists on encouraging the destructively codependent relationship he has with Tessa. She even makes mention of how none of the therapists she brought Hardin to helped him like Tessa apparently has, suggesting that their "love" is a more effective treatment for trauma than therapy. If After We Collided wasn't already irresponsible in its messaging, that moment definitely would've been the clincher.

Replacing Peter Gallagher as Hardin's father Ken is Rob Estes. While Ken's role here is only slightly more substantial than it was in After, it still gives Estes room to make a decent impression. Too bad the movie skips right over the perfect opportunity to give Hardin some character-building growth with Ken, literally hitting the mute button on what could've been a heartfelt conversation between father and son. We also get a return of Shane Paul McGhie's compelling performance as Landon, with him and Trevor making up the only two characters to call out Hardin for what he is. But Landon still ends up on "Team Hessa" and, like Trevor and Ken, has a diminished role in the story.

Speaking of diminished, Selma Blair and Dylan Arnold get to return for exactly one joint scene that simultaneously ruins both Carol and Noah. Noah's once wholly lovable character is tarnished while Carol amps her abusively controlling nastiness up a few levels. So much for that paper-thin "redemption" she received at the end of the last movie. The best of the returning cast, though, is Inanna Sarkis as the unabashed Molly. Sarkis gives Molly the same snarky edge she had before, though this time, she's got an unintentionally likable side. With how unbearable Tessa and especially Hardin have become since the first movie, seeing Molly get under their skin with her insults (which feel less mean and more brutally honest) is fun to watch. But not even Sarkis can do anything about the slut-shaming undertones of the big scene where Tessa and Molly finally face off again. Just another penny to put in the problematic piggy bank...

In smaller infractions, some of the directing choices fall flat. With After We Collided's R rating comes an increased amount of sex scenes, and while most of them are pretty passable, the scene after Tessa meets Trish starts OK before becoming uncomfortable to watch. One positive I can remark on is the last-second twist at the end. I legitimately didn't see it coming, and while I won't hold my breath, it has the potential to lead to a good storyline for Tessa in the next film. But otherwise, it's all a colossal disaster that makes the wobbly original film look like a Nicholas Sparks masterpiece.

For all the problematic aspects that arose with Netflix's The Kissing Booth series, the After franchise has proven itself much more deserving of scorn in just two movies. It also shows no sign of turning itself around like The Kissing Booth did. The main leads may've loosened up in the time between movies, but After We Collided has a whole host of other problems that drag it below its shorter-titled predecessor. The script is an absolute mess, the main characters are unappealing, their romance is gag-worthy, and what the film has to say about love is lowkey disturbing. Hardin may claim that "fate" was the cause of his and Tessa's troubled relationship, but the real culprit is Hardin's unwillingness to get real help and the fact that he and Tessa bring out the worst in each other. If you're like me and weren't a fan of After, After We Collided won't give you any hope that the franchise will make a turnabout. Now, to end this review with a good moral: don't go for a Hardin Scott. Go for a Trevor Wells Matthews.

Score: 2.5 out of 10 2013 Toyota Corollas.

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About the Creator

Trevor Wells

Aspiring writer and film lover: Lifetime, Hallmark, indie, and anything else that strikes my interest. He/him.

Link to Facebook

Twitter: @TrevorWells98

Instagram: @trevorwells_16

Email: [email protected]

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