After Ever Happy (2022)

Good girls often like bad boys. This eternal theme never ceases to be an inspiration to writers and filmmakers who turn to it again and again, sometimes creating timeless hits. And every time the audience eagerly follows the twists and turns of a fatal passion, the outcome of which is a foregone conclusion - the characters are too different to stay together for long. But there are happy exceptions, which, as you know, only confirm the rule.

That's what happened to the characters in Anna Todd's bestseller, After, whose tumultuous relationship spanned four volumes. Critics called the novel about student love affairs "a vanilla version of the story of Anastasia and Christian" from the controversial "Fifty Shades of Grey" by Erica James. And the filmmakers have taken the work of a young writer hailed as "the greatest literary phenomenon of her generation" as the basis for a film franchise, also consisting of four parts.

Each episode, as well as each part of the novel, tells about a new round of relations between a young couple - smart and beautiful from a simple American family, Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and the rebel Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin). - the son of rich Englishmen. The young heroes belong to different worlds and adhere to different values, but the stronger their attraction to each other. The intensity of passions sometimes exceeds the scale - after all, deep in their hearts, each of them understands that insurmountable contradictions will eventually lead them to part.

The first film is about how a chance meeting turns the lives of two students upside down. Each of them represented a completely different image of their future partner, but fate decided otherwise, and now Tessa and Harry cannot imagine life without each other.

In the second film, Tessa reveals some unpleasant details about her boyfriend, questioning the continuation of their romance. It seems that once Hardin argued with his friends that he would fall in love with the proud impregnable Tess. The guy has long forgotten about this episode, but the girl feels insulted and cheated. Young people are arguing. Soon, the heroine has a new admirer - Trevor, who intends to win her heart. But Harry isn't about to give up.

In the third part of the film franchise, the circumstances of life continue to test the main characters' love for power. The shocking truth about Tessa and Hardin's families is revealed, and the lovers realize they have much more in common than previously thought. A year has passed since their first meeting, and in that time both have changed. Tessa is no longer such a sweet and modest girl, and Hardin is not the cheeky and extravagant young man she once fell in love with: he has matured and become more reasonable. But this did not make their feelings any weaker.

Many fans of the franchise note that the previous part left them with a certain feeling of incompleteness and complain about the questions left after the ending. In many ways, this was facilitated by a very unexpected plot twist. The answers to them should be found in part four.

In the fourth part, Hardin continues to get along and commits a murder. Thanks to rich relatives, he remains unpunished. Meanwhile, Tessa receives unexpected blows of fate. For fans of the franchise, connected to "happily ever after", it will be a revelation that the story will continue in the fifth and sixth part.