After

After is a romantic drama following Tessa Young, an impressionable college freshman, as she discovers more about herself and her desires after meeting Hardin Scott, a British bad boy, that goes to her school. The movie is based off of the young adult novel of the same name by Anna Todd. It stars relatively unknown actors Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin.

I thought that the plot was engaging and easy to follow with a very well laced and appropriate soundtrack for the movie. The themes of firsts; first loves, first heartbreaks, growing up and making your own choices during a very influential time in your life, are all themes I could relate to. My only knock on the plot was that it was predictable with a lot of details left out. It gave me knockoff Cruel Intentions vibes with a much more mature, yet still very beautiful, Selma Blair playing Tessa’s mom. She has gone through a lot personally with her health so I thought that she looked really great in this movie and did a decent job in her role. Another blast from the past was a surprise addition of the dad from The OC, Peter Gallagher, who played Hardin’s dad. I was intrigued by his dynamic with Hardin and would have liked to have seen that relationship expanded more upon in this film. The rest of the cast I had never seen before but they were all attractive and diverse. However, a lot of the characters were very one dimensional and could have used a lot more development. Perhaps that is why I found the acting from the majority group to be mediocre except that from Austrian-born Josephine who played Tessa, she brought a descent range of emotions and had an impressive American accent.

In regard to cinematography, there were too many slow motion edits to give that feeling of intensity between the two love interests, which in the end felt forced. They didn’t need it because the chemistry was naturally there.

Overall the movie was okay. It was properly prepped for a sequel, which will be dropping later this year, so I’m hoping to get more depth in the backstories and development from these characters in the upcoming film.