After Everything The Final Chapter review – Castille Landon gives the perfect happily-ever-after but we’ve a grouse

2.5/5

After Everything plot

Hardin (played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin), struggling with writer’s block, tries to make amends with his past, so that he could finally move on.

After Everything review

After Everything: The Final Chapter picks up from where the 2022 After Ever Happy ended. After his hugely successful first book that ironically distanced him from the love of his life Tessa (played by Josephine Langford), Hardin is lost and lonely. A heartbroken Hardin finds himself on a plane to Lisbon, Portugal, as he tries to make peace with his past.

After Everything, that had its theatrical release in the US in September 2023, dropped on Netflix on February 1, 2024.

Like its predecessors, the final instalment in the popular After series, also continues to focus on the new-age couple’s relationship and their struggle to live with or without it. The very fact that that the 2023 movie is the fifth instalment is proof of its popularity though the series has garnered negative reviews from critics as well.

Also read - After Ever Happy review: Continuing the saga of packaging toxicity as undying love 

After Everything, the final instalment, follows Hardin as he is finally ready to own up to his mistakes and face Nathalie, whom he had wronged in his younger years.

Written and directed by Castille Landon, After Everything is breezy and briskly unfolds the romantic drama. It offers us lovely people in picturesque setting and some moving performances. Even while dealing with heartbreak, the movie gives frame after frame that are lit up like pretty postcards. And especially the scenes shot in Lisbon, Portugal, with its heavenly blue oceans and the long coastline with majestic cliffs, elevate the visual experience of the movie. But for all its beauty, the part in Portugal did raise an uneasy question.

For a movie that focusses on Hardin finally realising the importance of consent, the film makes a rather big slip while portraying Nathalie’s response to Hardin seeking forgiveness. She does not appear to be really angry at Hardin for betraying her trust and using her just to win back a watch, and she forgives him rather too quickly. Mimi Keene, whom we had also seen in Netflix’s Sex Education, brings grace to her performance as Nathalie but she is let down by poor writing that relegates her character to a pretty footnote in Hardin’s love story.

Also read - Before ‘After Everything,’ here’s a quick recap of the previous 4 'After' installments and where you can watch them

In Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s portrayal of Hardin, we get to see the anger and confusion of a youth, who grapples to find a way out of the mess he has created for himself. This is Hardin’s story and Tiffin truly owns the movie as he walks down the difficult path of self-discovery, making amends in his past relationships both in romantic and family lives, and finally emerging a stronger individual worthy of love.

We only get to see flashes of Tessa during the initial portions of the movie, and it is only during the climax that Josephine Langford gets to be a solid presence.

After Everything verdict

For fans of the After series, After Everything: The Final Chapter offers the perfect happily-ever-after for Hardin and Tessa’s love story. With its lovely frames and moving performances, After Everything is a breezy watch but if only the makers had given little more thought to Nathalie, we would have got a movie worth rooting for.

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