When Love Turns into Chaos: The Stormy World of After We Fell
By the time After We Fell was released into theaters in 2021, it was considered not just another romantic drama. It was an event. After fans of Anna Todd’s After book series had spent months counting down the weeks, dissecting the trailers, and scrutinizing the Instagram accounts of the stars, Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin. The After franchise carefully marketed the third installment as promising an even more in-depth exploration of Tessa and Hardin’s relationship, pushing both the love of the audience and the character’s to the breaking point.
Yet, the anticipation surrounding After We Fell was not merely about another steamy sequel. The emotional weight was carried from the first film, and the question remained, would this chapter provide the closure, or the chaos, that the audience had been waiting for?
When the Fantasy Meets Reality
There is no doubt that After We Fell had enormous expectations prior to its release. The first two installments, After (2019) and After We Collided (2020) had become cult- classics, particularly in younger audiences in the Indian subcontinent and Latin America, two of the most emotionally driven regions for romantic dramas.
The trailers hinted at more complex stakes, darker tones, and adult content. The film’s tagline — “Every ending has a beginning” — hinted at heartbreak and a revelation. The audience anticipated a story filled with tears, flames, and redemption. The film, however, diverged from those expectations: there was emotional depth, and yet, there was a disorganized construct that, rather than undermining the film, provided a disconnect that too closely showcased the characters’ lives.
Tessa and Hardin: Lovers or Fighters?
The central plot of After We Fell closely follows Tessa (Josephine Langford) as she attempts to make a decision about a new job opportunity in Seattle. This job will expand the distance between her and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), and, ultimately, the complexity of her decision and the potential rift is a central point of tension in the plot. Hardin is a character constructed around the archetype of the tortured soul and is of little emotional support to Tessa. His complex of jealousy, his abandonment issues, and his more profound difficulties in letting Tessa make her own choices bear the hallmark of troubled soul.
The tension between them is not romantic. It is real. Tessa and Hardin’s struggles will drain the audience. It is not as though the audience witnesses a collapse of romance and the constructs of a fairytale. The audience can witness, painfully, the love and the romance become a struggle.Family trauma is also explored in this chapter. We are exposed to Hardin’s emotionally unstable upbringing and strained relationship with his father, and how this deterioration manifests itself in every fight with Tessa. Tessa’s crises are also complex: the sudden reemergence of her father, her mother’s harsh disapproval, and the burdens of an accelerated transition to adulthood.
For those viewers who’ve kept up with them since the beginning, this movie was like watching two people you love trying to keep afloat, and the horror of watching them fail in slow motion.
Josephine Langford: The Quiet Fire Behind Tessa
When Josephine Langford first took on the role of Tessa Young in 2019, she was still somewhat in the shadow of her sister, Katherine Langford, the star of 13 Reasons Why. However, by the time of After We Fell, Josephine had established her own space in the industry and this movie was a testament to that.
Away from interviews, Langford is still described as shy, reserved, and fiercely private, a contrast to emotional openness and vulnerability she displays on screen. In interviews, she mentioned how portraying Tessa required her to explore a range of emotions she routinely skirted. “Tessa’s journey is about finding her voice,” she expressed, “and maybe mine too.”
In After We Fell, you can see that growth. Her portrayal of a young woman, conflicted and torn, between love and her own independence is subtle but striking. There is a quiet tremor of defiance in her voice during confrontations and she softens with devotion when Hardin breaks. Weary resignation is behind her congratulatory smiles.
The personal coming-of-age for Langford was as much about taking on the role as character about to cross a pivotal milestone.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin: The Man Behind the Fury
Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s clipped British charm and brooding stare made him a natural choice to play Hardin Scott. Like the character he plays, Hero is magnetic. The differences between Hero and Hardin Tiffin are as remarkable as the character he plays.
In reality, Fiennes Tiffin is soft-spoken, and his shy demeanor is nearly the opposite to Hardin’s irritable, headstrong, and rash temper. It was as if Fiennes Tiffin’s character needed just a little more rage to Hardin’s portrait. He was described as gentle and introspective on the sets by his co-stars.
Hero had been managing his fame while shooting After We Fell. It was the After series that instantly catapulted him to the status of a global heartthrob. He has mentioned the challenges that arise with such fame, especially balancing the attention and the building of a serious career, which is a double-edged sword for most aspiring actors. It was him who mentioned that the emotional struggle of carving out the character entailed, “Hardin is someone I had to understand, not judge.”
That empathy is visible in every frame. In After We Fell, his anger feels less performative and more like pain wearing armor. Under the tattoos, glimpses of the broken boy shine through, and that is the thing that keeps the audience’s attention. It is that search for humanity that keeps the audience glued to the character.
The Look and Feel: Passion, Shadows, and Silence
After We Fell is more cinematically, intimate than its predecessors. The pacing is slower, the colors more muted, and the lighting more lush, nearly achieving a faint, dreamlike melancholy. The camera sometimes lingers a little too long, on faces, and on eyes, that do not know how to say what they mean, evoking that strange sensation of a memory you would like to forget but can’t, and refusing to revisit it feels like a struggle.
The soundtrack reinforces this feeling, especially with the use of indie-pop like Ashe’s “Moral of the Story,” which captures the characters’ discord. The film’s quiet moments, such as Tessa alone in a hotel room, Hardin watching her leave, are the strongest.
Some critics, of course, have argued that the film lacks variety and become tedious with the endless cycle of arguments, reconciliations, and familiar tears. Fans, however, embraced the repetitive nature of the film. As they saw it, love, especially toxic love, is a painful cycle that repeats, circled, and rhythmically hurts and heals.
The Hype, the Heat, and the Real Talk Behind the Scenes
As filming began in late 2020, the pandemic, as well as location and even recasting changes, triggered more Production disruptions. Due to travel restrictions, several minor parts had to be filled and recasting became necessary. Although initially upsetting fans, the cast remained focused and, to mitigate disruptions, filmed After We Fell and After Ever Happy, back-to-back in Bulgaria.
Tensions were present beyond the cast and crew’s discernment. Although many fans speculated over the off-screen relationship of Josephine and Hero, both of whom play the leads, the couple consistently denied the rumors of a romance claiming the relationship as “strictly professional, but built on mutual trust.”
Even fewer know that, at the time, Sandra Bullock’s The Lost City occupied one of the nearby soundstages. Crew from both sets even exchanged stories of the emotional bubble scenes that had to be filmed in isolating conditions. While After We Fell’s cast isolation engineered an outcasting sentiment, the film’s emotional tone captured an aspect of real-life lockdown fatigue in their claustrophobic scenes.
When Fiction Mirrors the Fans
Ultimately, After We Fell was not a flawless film — but it did not have to be. It depicted the chaos of first love, the pain of adolescence, and the unyielding optimism of believing in the possibility of change. It was not the film’s imperfections that resonated with the audience, but its authenticity. It was like seeing the parts of yourself that you would rather conceal playing out on the screen in all its rawness.
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