After (2019) - Movie Review

In the wake of the young-adult romance powerhouse that is Twilight, it seems like cinematic standards have buckled somewhat. This isn’t me flogging the horse-shaped cloud of dust that Twilight has become in the popular consciousness; I’m talking more about the material that it inspired. Specifically, fanfiction. Now, fanfiction itself has its place in the larger fan community, and hell, I’ve even written a few stories myself about the fandoms I was in back in high school. Sure, I wrote more about girls getting fucked by sentient electric guitars and guys whose dicks exploded mid-oral, but for what it's worth, I get why fan art is a thing. I ain't proud of it, but since I'm not exactly innocent, I'm not going to cast judgement on anyone else who's done it.

But between The Mortal Instruments bringing reworked Harry Potter fanfiction to the shelves and later the multiplex, and the even bigger example of Fifty Shades Of Grey, we’ve reached the point where ‘people are reading in droves’ and ‘people have unprecedented access to home-made writing material’ have properly collided, and what is left over is a sense that just about anything can become a movie these days. Like today’s offering, a Fifty Shades-esque renaming of a One Direction fanfic that is… so fucking unnecessary that it’s maddening.

It’s not just that the writing and overall story as clichéd as fuck; clichés are just ideas that have been repeated so often that the audience has a chance of recognising it, and that’s usually because said clichés work. But when they’re being presented as is, with no tweaks or examinations or even competent delivery, it can really drain the life out of a story. And here, they begin at the literal start of the film with one of those voice-over speeches about those moments in life that end up defining your life, right down to the end credits.

You’ve got the pristine (read: virginal) female lead. You’ve got the black leather jacket-wearing bad boy who only has two modes: Awkward staring across the room and lonesome brooding. (Bonus points for having a British accent.) You’ve got the disposable love interest who exists only to be left behind, artificially made to be controlling and dickish just so there’s no love lost (or found, for that matter).

You’ve got the man saving the woman from a possibly icky situation to show his worth, because women exist to be protected, don’t you know?(!) You’ve got him worrying that he isn’t good enough for her, unintentionally admitting how toxic the relationship actually is underneath all the beige wallpaper. You’ve even got the inclusion of quotes from classic literature to try and make all this dross sound deeper than it actually is. And on that last point, this has to be the most egregious example yet, as the references are abrasively plentiful and only serve to further highlight how weak the writing is here.

If any of this is giving readers Twilight flashbacks, be warned that the chemistry between our leads is about on par. Only I doubt that Hero Fiennes-Tiffin was trolling his way through production like Pattinson did. Built off the back of tired stereotypes, Josephine Langford and Fiennes-Tiffin are about as scintillating as a packet of overcooked ramen, with all the ‘how did you even fuck that up?’ bewilderment intact. What makes it worse is that, despite how much the story is trying to push the danger of this coupling and how much a risk Langford’s Tessa is taking, it’s also so painfully sanitised that it feels like drowning in antiseptic. I’ve seen Nicholas Sparks adaptations that took more risks, if only to create genuinely insane plot points.

Not that any of what I have to say matters. The source material has its fans, this film has already recouped its budget and then some, and a sequel is already in development; its success is already established. I’d say that all this is harmless and meant to just appeal to the fans… but I won’t. I can’t. I cannot accept that literary adaptations have gotten to a point where, because of ravenous fandom numbers, just about anything can get the big screen treatment. I don’t want the face of teenaged romance cinema to just be someone else’s fandom-drenched fantasies thinly re-arranged into ‘original work’. Fan work is fine, and sometimes great, but if you're gonna charge today's ticket prices for the privilege, I expect it to be of better quality than this shit.

Some writers have been able to legitimise fanfiction in a genuine sense, like the works of Alan Moore or just about anything based on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, but this? Apparently, anything can be given the Fifty Shades renaming routine and be ready for cinemas. Why not adapt My Immortal into a movie while you’re at it? If this kind of incessantly bland OC romance fiction can make it to cinemas, why not? The possibilities for cynically squeezing fandoms for their allowances are endless when you have no standards.