After Truth

The sultry love triangle of Tessa Young (Josephine Langford) and Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) enters its second round. However, their young happiness seems to have run its course. Tessa can't forgive Hardin for lying to her and so she tries to make a fresh start without him. She succeeds quite well, until she calls him one evening after a few too many drinks. Promptly Hardin is in front of her again and despite considerable misgivings the romance flares up anew. In fact, this time everything seems to be going well - until Hardin once again reveals that he just can't shake off the demons of his past.

After "After Passion" was quite successful, especially in Germany, "After Truth", the film adaptation of the second volume of Anna Todd's popular Young Adult series, is now coming to our cinemas. There was a little hope in advance that the flick would be better than its predecessor. After all, Roger Kumble, a filmmaker who proved with "Ice-Cold Angels" that stories like this can be told with bite, wry humor, and interestingly drawn characters - all aspects where "After Passion" is clearly lacking. In fact, Part 2 works a little better than the first film did. As a result, the target audience and fans are absolutely satisfied. That's really all that matters. Nevertheless, it must also be said that "After Truth" is also far from being a good movie.

The story is composed of set pieces of similar teen romances that have already been used countless times and never rises above the level of a Bravo photo love story. This may not bother the target audience, but it ensures that the story and protagonists are absolutely interchangeable. Also, the soundtrack sounds again like all other Young Adult film adaptations of the last years. Originality? Missing! So the characters are drawn absolutely one-dimensional and are only embodied by actors with limited talent. Especially hero Fiennes Tiffin reveals in the more dramatic moments that he may break girls' hearts, but is guaranteed not to win any awards for his acting.

Now, as is well known, an attempt should be made to keep part 2 closer to the book template, which should offer fans more in terms of sex and eroticism. Therefore, the film was designed for an R-rating in the US. In Germany it remains with the release from 12 years, because the makers have not really "erotischer" implemented this sequel, but have simply made the language a little more raunchy. Instead of "I want to sleep with you", Tessa is now allowed to say "f**k me" more clearly. UiUiUiUi, they dare to do something!

In principle, it's gratifying that distributors are bringing crowd-pleasers like "After Truth" back into cinemas, and every visitor helps the hard-pressed cinema landscape. And if the target audience is happy, that's perfectly okay. Nevertheless, it can and must be criticized when a film throws around clichés like this and lacks any form of original ideas or interesting characters. Therefore: As a movie "After Truth" is really not good - but for fans of the first part this sequel is still absolutely worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp