After We Collided

 

After We Collided is the sequel to 2019’s After. It picks up a month after the original ended with Hardin fighting to win back Tessa’s love. Will Tessa forgive him or will she move on with her life? 

Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin reprised their roles as Tessa and Hardin, respectively. The casting also added some familiar faces such as The Vampire Dairies’, Candice King as Kimberly and How To Get Away With Murder’s Charlie Weber as Christian Vance. The acting from the majority of the cast wasn’t bad, Josephine Langford did the majority of the heavy lifting just like in the original. She’s the star that brings the range and connection to the role. I would have liked to seen an even deeper character development for her, but it looks like we will get more of that in the next film based off of the cliff hanger in this one. I haven’t seen Dylan Sprouse in many projects before this, but I liked his role of Trevor, the smart accountant, who is a bit awkward, with the dry sense of humor, who seems to have a genuine heart and looks after his friends. There were a couple of re-casts as well but it all went over smoothly and they continued to push the diversity of the cast which I appreciated.

I liked that they dug a little deeper in the character development for Hardin. I can empathize more with his addiction having a clearer picture of the root cause, but I had a hard time rationalizing some of his outbursts. I don’t know if he was written to be so emotional, destructive and childish, at times, or if that was overacting on Hero’s part, but either way, it was just too much.

The plot was entertaining and there were plenty of steamy, sexy scenes, but the script was pretty terrible and cheesy. It’s hard for me to get fully behind this 50 Shades of Grey mixed with Twilight inspired couple as I’m not a huge fan of romanticizing what appears to be a very unhealthy relationship but I'm game to see how this plays out in the next two installments.