‘After We Collided’: Should You Skip or Stream the New Movie on Netflix?
After We Collided, the long-awaited sequel to 2019’s After, is finally available to stream on Netflix.
Within a week of its Dec. 22 release on the platform, the young adult romance is already in the top 10 list of what users are watching. But should you skip or stream the second installment from this franchise?
What is ‘After We Collided’ about?
After We Collided picks up one month after the conclusion of After. While the end of the first movie shows love interests Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) blissfully swimming in a lake together, this film starts on a much more angsty note — the pair have broken up.
Tessa throws herself into her internship at Vance Publishing, where she soon impresses the company founder Christian Vance with her dedicated work ethic and eye for compelling manuscripts. Hardin, on the other hand, is more visibly struggling from their breakup. He turns to drinking and is seen moodier than ever with his college peers.
Tessa continues to impress her colleagues while striking a flirty friendship with “nerdy” (he wears glasses and suits!) co-worker Trevor Matthews (Dylan Sprouse). Predictably, she’s caught in the middle between Hardin and Trevor, all while balancing her precarious relationship with her parents and work life.
Critics react to ‘After We Collided’
After We Collided earned a green splat on Rotten Tomatoes — indicating that critics aren’t totally in favor of the sequel.
“American ‘Afternators’ will no doubt be similarly pleased with this slightly campier continuation of the series,” AV Club writer Caroline Siede said in her review. “For everyone else, however, there’s not enough innovation to make the second installment a worthwhile jumping-on point.”
If you enjoyed the first movie, which is based on Harry Styles Wattpad fanfiction by Anna Todd, you will probably like the sequel. This movie gives viewers a similar experience as it does in its predecessor, showing an unhealthy relationship between two college kids who can’t get enough of each other. The will-they-won’t-they of it all starts to feel a little redundant though with Hardin’s excessive yelling and throwing things and Tessa’s evergreen jealousy.
Tessa and Hardin’s relationship continues to be a bumpy roller coaster, just like it was in After. They bring out the worst in each other — including resentment from Tessa and controlling behavior from Hardin. The very foundation of their relationship is built on a lie. And Hardin spends most of this movie attempting to make up for that, while Tessa proves her paranoia about Hardin’s intentions may simply never subside.
Could there be more ‘After’ movies?
As Distractify noted, many are left wondering whether there’s more to come from the After world following the wild cliffhanger at the end of After We Collided. Luckily, the lead actors didn’t make the audience wait too long by giving fans the information they wanted about what’s next for the series.
“There have been lots of people working really hard behind the scenes,” Fiennes Tiffin said in a Twitter video. Langford then revealed that the third and fourth movies for the After franchise began production. And in another post, the two revealed they wrapped on the third and fourth films in December.
If the five-book series is anything to go by, there might still be one more film to come in the After universe. Hopefully, at some point, these two break up for good. Then we might really have a happily ever After.
