After We Collided (2020)

Directed by: Roger Kumble | 106 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Dylan Sprouse, Louise Lombard, Shane Paul McGhie, Candice King, Charlie Weber, Samuel Larsen, Karimah Westbrook, Rob Estes, Inanna Sarkis, Pia Mia, Khadijha Red Thunder, Selma Blair, Dylan Arnold, Max Ragone

Would Harry Styles be happy that he was the inspiration for American author Anna Todd’s ‘After’ book series? The British singer, who was once part of the hugely popular boy band One Direction, modeled for Hardin Scott, the male protagonist of Todd’s fanfiction series. She even gave him the same initials! Todd wrote the stories on her phone (a chapter each day) and initially published her lyrics through the Wattpad app. The romantic preoccupations of the 18-year-old American student Tessa and the mysterious and brooding British rebel Hardin were so popular that Todd had no trouble finding a publisher to sell her work. He rubbed the hands with writer Todd, who squeezed out no less than five volumes of her ‘After’ series within fourteen months. Assembly line work is usually not synonymous with high-quality prose, but the fans – not infrequently also fans of the ‘Fifty Shades’ trilogy – don’t give a damn. A quartet of films was announced, the first of which, simply ‘After’, was released in 2019. The film was mercilessly slammed by the press, but the makers stuck to their plan and launched part two in 2020: ‘After We Collided’.

Those who were wise to ignore the first film, are briefly informed about the events at the beginning of part two via a rather monotonous voice-over (‘This is a story you’ve heard before’; kicked in an open door). New-fangled college student Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) is a dedicated and serious girl with big ambitions. Her life is turned upside down when she meets shaggy Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin, nephew of Ralph and Joseph). A type that she would normally walk around with a bow, but to whom she is surprisingly strongly attracted. At the end of the first movie, Tessa discovers that Hardin had made a bet to get her into bed. When part two starts, we’re only a month away, but Tessa has made a fast career. She begins her internship at a leading publishing house, where she has to deal with an employer Vance (Charlie Weber) who has a reputation for unceremoniously turning newbies off after a small mistake. However, Tessa manages to select a potential bestseller, she can go to an exclusive party of an important investor and can stay at the boss’s expense in a luxury suite in an expensive hotel – all on her first day. Meanwhile, Hardin appears to be unable to forget her – and the feeling is mutual. When his mother (Louise Lombard) comes over from England, she wants to pretend the two are still together. Why on earth…? In no time she and Hardin end up in bed together again and the whole game of attraction and repulsion starts all over again…

‘After We Collided’ doesn’t have to be about the story as expected. In fact, it lacks a solid plot altogether. Instead, we’re presented with a series of standalone scenes in which two young actors who barely have any chemistry with each other either revolve around each other or make love to each other. If those courtships were somehow still exciting, we could (to some extent) still go along with it. But because Tessa and Hardin are such flat and meaningless characters, the actors don’t seem to know what to do with each other and we’re distracted by the unmissable product placement of lingerie brand Victoria’s Secrets, the scenes don’t affect us at all. Because the film has very little to say about it (!) it becomes quite difficult to linger for the full hundred minutes.

Half-hearted attempts at sketching some backstory around Hardin and explaining his troubled relationship with his father (Peter Gallagher in part one thanked for the credit, so we now have to make do with Rob Estes) are futile. Tessa and Hardin’s rambling is downright exhausting. As a viewer, you hope that something serious happens to one of the two, so that there is a bit of life in the brewery. But when something finally happens, it is effortlessly stepped over in the next scene, so that Langford and Fiennes can fumble together again. What is also disturbing is the gratuitous use of the ‘F-word’, which comes across as forced; as if this would give the film more ‘street cred’. Poor Selma Blair was summoned to play Tessa’s mother again, only to be completely neglected. No wonder Gallagher and Jennifer Beals (who can still be seen as Hardin’s stepmother in the first film) thanked them for the ‘honour’. The only one who stands out in a positive way is Dylan Sprouse, in the role of Tessa’s attractive but ‘nerdy’ colleague Trevor, a boy who clearly suits her much better but whom, to the great frustration of the viewer, she barely sees.

Director Roger Kumble, who took over from Jenny Gage, made the comparable ‘Cruel Intentions’ (1999) twenty years ago; if only he had looked back at that film carefully before playing ‘After We Collided’. Or maybe there’s just nothing better to do with Anna Todd’s wafer-thin source material than this. We’re holding our breath for the two parts of the ‘After’ series that are still to come…