Directors: 

After: Jenny Gage

After We Collided: Rodger Kumble 

After We Fell: Castille Landon

After Ever Happy: Castille Landon 

Background 

After started as a Harry Styles fan fiction on Wattpad. The plot followed Harry/Hardin and Tessa from Little Mix. It also featured the rest of One Direction and Little Mix. Once the Wattpad version started becoming popular Harry Styles noticed and told the author (Anna Todd) that she needed to change the name. She then changed it to Hardin. The Wattpad version was then picked up by Simon & Schuster where it gained even more traction for Voltage Pictures to pick it up and make it a movie. You can also still read the original version on Wattpad and you can also read the updated version on Wattpad as well. 

Movie Summary

"Based on Anna Todd's novel, AFTER follows Tessa [Young](Langford), a dedicated student, dutiful daughter, and loyal girlfriend to her high-school sweetheart, as she enters her first semester in college armed with grand ambitions for her future. Her guarded world opens up when she meets the dark, mysterious Hardin Scott (Tiffin), a magnetic, brooding rebel who makes her question all she thought she knew about herself and what she wants from life." (IMDB)

My Thoughts 

I had originally watched this movie back when it came out in 2019 but I fell out of watching the rest because of COVID. I also read all the books before the first movie came out.  So I decided to do a rewatch of the first one to get a good feeling for the next movies. Overall the movie went fast but it was very predictable. There were too many montages of what the relationship looked like but you barely got a look at what the relationship was actually like. We also didn't really get a clear idea of when Tessa lost her virginity. As well we don't see Hardin's actions at the end of the book. I understand why they wanted to keep the movie PG-13 but there was so much opportunity that they missed some of the biggest scenes of the book to keep it PG-13. Considering that this movie was based on fanfiction books it did a very good job portraying the idea of fanfiction. Overall the movie is worth a watch mainly for Josephine Langford and her amazing acting skills as Tessa. Hero Fiennes Tiffen was an ok actor but he didn't have many lines to judge him on. The lines he did have were memorable ones though that were pulled directly from the book. I did expect more from him because he played the iconic character of young Tom Riddle and was known for that role. 

Heading into the second movie, 

IMDB Rating Vs Mine 

After:  

IMDB: 5.3/10

Mine: 6/10

After we collided: 

IMDB: 5/10

After We Fell: 

IMDB: 4.7/10 

After Ever Happy: 

IMDB: 4.5/10