For the past several months, I’ve been waiting to watch the movie ‘After.’ When I finally found it on Netflix, I took some time to sit down and see what all the hoopla was about. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see. I knew its origins and that made me wonder if I would really enjoy this movie or if I would be rolling my eyes the entire time.
‘After’ originally started out on wattpad.com as a fanfiction for the band, One Direction–you know, the one with all the attractive guys with accents from the other side of the pond (I’m not talking about The Beatles here). Anna Todd wrote the fanfiction that quickly became so popular, it was published as a novel. Harry Styles soon became known as Hardin Scott, and apparently, the book exploded more from there. I’ve never read either of these stories, but I do have friends that have hyped them both up. But I was still curious to see how the movie would do. Plus, here is some pretty good motivation to watch the movie:
Am I right or am I right?
Anywho, here come some spoilers, so turn away now if you haven’t seen it! Tessa Young starts college, and there she meets the very dashing (and very English!!) Hardin Scott. Their connection is instant, even if it’s filled with mild disdain–with a very Elizabeth Bennett & Mr. Darcy vibe (if you’ve seen the movie, you probably get the reference). Of course, I was pulled into the building romance. I’m especially a sucker for the “bad boy that doesn’t believe in love meeting his soulmate and becoming a love sick puppy dog” story line. Since the story did start out as fanfiction, there were a couple cliches thrown in there, but I think it fit for the plot. I knew going into this movie that it would be sappy, so I wasn’t turned off from the movie when it got that way.
If anything, watching this movie made me really want to read the book–the actual published novel, not the fanfiction. So, I’m currently on my way to the bookstore to purchase some of Anna Todd’s books. Don’t judge me, we all have our vices. Mine just happens to be fanfiction writers becoming published authors.