The release date has jumped around the calendar almost half a dozen times, but fans of the dreamily romantic YA After series can finally breathe a sigh of relief: the fourth film, After Ever Happy, is now in Australian cinemas.
Based on the novels by Anna Todd and starting with 2019’s After, the series has followed the relationship between good American girl Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and bad British boy Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), charting their ups and downs, their passion and peril, until things finally seem to have settled down and some kind of happy future together awaits them.
However, a revelation about Hardin’s family and a personal tragedy for Tessa drive them apart again. Is there any chance for our star-cross’d lovers?
Well, there must be some chance…after all, there’s one more book in the series, and thus one more movie to come. And it’s worth remembering that the After series started out as One Direction fan fiction, much as the Fifty Shades series grew out of Twilight-inspired literary musings, so expectations should be calibrated accordingly. This series is less about anything so tawdry as realism, and more about undying longing, high emotion, and beautiful young people being young and beautiful in picturesque locations, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
We also get a stellar supporting cast surrounding our tumultuous couple, including Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s Chance Perdomo, The Gilmore Girls’ Arielle Kebbell, True Blood’s Stephen Moyer, and Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino as Tessa’s mother, Carol. It’s a rare actor who doesn’t enjoy chewing the scenery with gusto in a bit of pitched melodrama—and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t enjoy it, too. So, for your recommended dose of torrid tears and teen romance, give it a shot.
