Movie Review: After

Michael's Movie Grade: F

Review: Horribly cliché movie that doesn't even hide how it is trying to manipulate its audience.

In a romance movie there is often one thing that either makes it work or not work. This is the chemistry between the two characters who fall in love with each other. Often times a romance movie can overcome its clichés if it just has this one thing. Unfortunately that is what is completely missing here. There isn't even a moment here, when you can sense these two falling in love. The romance is unbelievably rushed. One gets the feeling that this movie is so eager to get to the next cliché of movie romances that it will not even provide motivation for the last cliché, Some of the clichés even feel like their only purpose is to fit another cliché in. Our two main characters are just as much clichés as the plot points. This is a good girl meets bad boy romance. However there is nothing more to the characters than he is a bad boy and she is a good girl. In other words they are bland as humanly possible.

With the characters being so bland the movie tries to go out of its way to manipulate us into wanting them to get together. The problem is it does this so obviously that we feel like we are being manipulated. Tessa has a "good boy" boyfriend before falling for the bad boy. However this "good boy" is simply a caricature of a "good boy." He is a stereotypical goody-two-shoes who when Tessa has a drink tattles on her to her mom. We obviously aren't supposed to want her to be with someone who is going to tattle on her, so why not the "bad boy" instead. The mom is trying to run Tessa's life and obviously objects to this "bad boy." However we see nothing of the mom but her trying to run her daughter's life with little to no warmness included. With this obviously we are supposed to want the daughter to rebel, so obviously we are supposed to want her to be this boy, her mom objects to. This is all down so obviously it is impossible not to see through.

If you want to watch a romance movie with all these clichés in it, it shouldn't be hard to find one that doesn't them better.

-Michael J. Ruhland