Name: After Ever Happy
Director: Castille Landon
Released: 2022-09-29T12:30:00

After Ever Happy is the fourth instalment in the After franchise, and follows Hardin and Tessa through their tumultuous relationship, as they grow together and also spend some time apart. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.

Story

After Ever Happy continues where the previous movie left off and follows Hardin and Tessa as he comes to know the truth about his real biological father.

And so begins another round of chase in their on-off relationship, as he tries to take time apart to process things, and Tessa chases after him to make things right.

Throughout the film, the two break things off and get back together again multiple times, making it hard for the audience to truly care for or root for the characters.

The plot is dramatic, with a new twist every 15 minutes, but it is so oversaturated with these diversions that the entire narrative becomes unbearable.

The dialogues are not the best either, and this makes for a very tough watch for the general audience that is not so invested in Tessa and Hardin’s relationship.

Performances

Mediocre performances make up the entirety of the film, with Josephine Langford and Hero Flennes Tiffin taking on the roles of Tessa and Hardin respectively. The two have little to no chemistry together, and even their individual scenes fail to impress.

A lot of the supporting cast has also been changed which makes it a bit tough to initially tell what role they play, but Mira Sorvino as Carol provides one of the best performances out of the bunch.

Positives

The constant twists in the narrative make for an intriguing watch. While it is not quite entertaining in the literal sense of the word, it is dramatic enough to want to know what happens next in the storyline.

Negatives

The film consists largely of subpar dialogues that feel like they were written in a span of five minutes. With badly written dialogues and even worse dialogue delivery, After Ever Happy is almost unbearable to get through.

The storyline is portrayed to be a romantic tale of lovers fighting against all odds to be together but trying to unsuccessfully conceal what it really is- a toxic tale where both the characters deserve better. In portraying it as an idealised romance, the movie also runs the risk of propagating toxic relationships to a largely young and impressionable audience.

With nothing subsequent happening in the plot to further the narrative, the film just feels like a filler movie between the others in the franchise. It is a bland tale that neither has the audience rooting for the characters nor is it entertaining enough to get through.

Verdict

With a bad storyline, bad acting, bad dialogues and bad structure, After Ever Happy is truly an unbearable recipe for disaster, unless you are invested in what happens to Tessa and Hardin’s relationship. Even then, the film lacks substance and is hard to stay interested n for long.