This year’s award for most unpleasant franchise ending goes to After Everything. The romantic series based on the books by Anna Todd turned out to be an unexpected box office hit with After Passion four years ago. Four sequels followed. But what should have been the crowning finale of the series on Amazon Prime * this year proved one thing above all: The Series should have ended long ago.
The After series actually began as an ideal alternative for teenagers between Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey
After Everything translates as “after everything” and follows After Passion (2019), After Truth (2020), After Love (2021) and After Forever (2022). The quality of the romance series is debatable. It looked like “Fifty Shades of Gray for teenagers”, with an FSK 12 rating (After Passion even with FSK 0), and had many Twilight parallels. That means: the perfect emotional guilty pleasure watch for every now and then.
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After Passion brings Tessa and Hardin together
When the naive good girl Tessa (Josephine Langford) and the tormented bad boy Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) fall in love despite their differences and then can’t decide whether they want to be together or not, the will-they-won’t- they certainly have their charm.
But since the After series consisted of four volumes and the success of the first film justified it, the other books had to be made into films as well. As quickly as possible. As long as interest lasted. This even went so far that After Love radically replaced four important supporting actors because waiting for them in Corona times would have delayed everything too much due to complicated entry regulations. At this point, there were already signs of the franchise’s collapse.
After Passion: When anger replaces passion
The outcry over the change of actors was great among the fan community. And then even the end result wasn’t good! The third and fourth After films were shot together in record time in Bulgaria, but they degenerated into one irrelevant monotony. Instead of maturing with its audience like Harry Potter did, After Love and After Forever just wallowed in tired regurgitation of familiar themes like love and separation, dependency and freedom.
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What comes after After Forever?
Most romance films stop when the couple gets together. But the After films wanted to continue, so they had to The happiness of the main characters is increasingly delayed become. I’m certainly not the only one who persevered just to finish the series, which was increasingly losing quality, and then put it away. Only to be annoyed and surprised by another cliffhanger.
Which brings us to the “big conclusion” After Everything, which was no longer shown in cinemas but came directly to Amazon Prime on October 3, 2023.
After Everything on Amazon Prime shows a wedding in the finale, but is a funeral
After Everything asks the all-important question: Are Tessa and Hardin getting together or not? After Hardin wrote down their love story in a novel in Part 4 without Tessa’s knowledge, things broke up. In the fifth and final film he deals with the separation with a solo vacation in Portugal. Wait, what?
As After Everything progresses, I begin to feel confused and then annoyed. Because suddenly the focus is completely on Hardin. We don’t see Tessa for a full hour. And that is the most annoying wrong decision of all, because: What does a romantic film have to say that forgets its protagonist? It’s a bit like Twilight suddenly devoting herself only to a brooding Edward, even though Bella was always the clear main character in the story.
The trailer for After Everything disguises Tessa’s absence:
After Everything – Trailer (German) HD
Instead of Tessa, Hardin meets an old flame in Portugal that we’ve never heard of before: Natalie (Mimi Keene), whom he did wrong years ago. If he can get forgiveness from her, then maybe he can get it from Tessa too. At least that’s what it says logic of the film. But that Heart of love films ultimately falls by the wayside. The romance series may be aimed primarily at people who like to adore ambivalent love interests. But that doesn’t mean that you can simply take Tessa away from them. Even without being an invested fan, this makes me angry!
The fact that Hardin and Tessa are quickly brought together in the 30-minute end of the after series does not hide the fact that the last film has long since become one listless afterthought has degenerated. Hardin’s marriage proposal at the end, complete with a flash-forward to their picture-perfect family love, feels more like a funeral. The happy ending, which would have been due at the end of part 4 at the latest, was delayed for too long. A series that once began as a surprise hit ends in After Everything “after everything” it’s been through in the most miserable way: a joyless relationship that has long since lost its staying power.
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