Dylan Sprouse | Through the Shattered Lens

The worst film of 2019 gets a sequel and the end result is one of the worst films of 2020. If nothing else, you have to appreciate the consistency of it all.

At the end of After, Tessa (Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) had broken up, despite obviously being meant to be together. They broke up because Tessa discovered that Hardin only went out with her to win a bet. When After We Collided picks up their story, a few weeks have passed. Hardin is now sleeping in his car and getting new tattoos. Tessa is starting an internship at Vance Publishing. It doesn’t take long for Tessa and Hardin to get together and once again become the most boring couple on the planet.

Everyone warns Tessa about Hardin and, of course, Hardin spends a lot of time drinking and brooding and getting tattoos. But Tessa is now more independent and …. eh, who cares? I mean, even if Tessa is now a stronger and more confident character and Hardin is now more honest about his emotions, they’re still just as boring as ever and, if possible, Langford and Tiffin have even less chemistry in the sequel than they did in the first film. Langford has mastered one facial expression (a sort of low-energy smirk) and Tiffin is constantly screwing up his features whenever Hardin is supposed to be feeling emotional but neither one of them actually seems to be a living, full-blooded human being. Instead, they feel like bots, created to mouth repetitious dialogue and to go through the motions of the same plot over and over again. Everything they do seems to be pre-programmed. There’s not a spontaneous thought or moment to be found.

When Tessa isn’t flirting with Hardin and reading her favorite books (like Madame Bovary, because Tessa is edgy, y’all), she’s working at Vance Publishing. Her co-worker, Trevor (Dylan Sprouse) is in love with her but he’s too shy to come right out and say it. He does warn her that Hardin is just going to hurt her. Because the film is so ineptly edited, it’s hard to keep track of how much time passes. However, it does appear that Tessa becomes a valued and important member of the office in what seems to be just a matter of hours. Of course, everyone in the film loves Tessa because this is basically fanfic and a Mary Sue by any other name is still a cringey trope.

Speaking of fanfic, the author of After and its sequels has a cameo in this film. Anna Todd appears in a nightclub scene. A woman asks her what books she’s written and Todd smirks before saying, “Oh, this and that.” This inspired me to yell, “Fuck you!” as I looked for something to throw at the screen. Seriously, it’s one thing to be responsible for something terrible. It’s another thing to brag about it. Add to that, the cameo was so poorly executed that I half expected Todd to look straight at the camera and wink after delivering her line. In fact, it probably would have saved the scene if she had. At the very least, it would have at least suggested that the film was inviting us to laugh with it as opposed to at it.

That said, I will say that After We Collided is a slight improvement on After. In After, Josephine Langford actually tried to give an emotionally honest and consistent performance and, as a result, she was kind of boring because Tessa is an incredibly dull character. In After We Collided, Josephine Langford is just as bad as everyone else and it leads to a few unintentionally amusing moments. Unlike the rather stolid After, the sequel at least has a few moments of accidental camp.

My favorite moment was when a frustrated Tessa told Hardin that she needed to go for a walk to straighten out her thoughts. When Tessa returns, Hardin has his earbuds in and is listening to music so he can’t hear her. That still doesn’t stop her from standing behind him and repeating his name a few dozen times. Is he deliberately ignoring her or is the music just that good? The film never tells us but Tessa and Hardin are such annoying characters that it’s fun to think about all of the passive aggressive ways that they can make each other miserable.

After We Collided is reportedly going to be followed by two more sequels so we’ll eventually get to see if Hardin and Tessa can somehow become even more boring than they’ve already been. It’s not going to be easy but I think they might just pull it off.

Based on a controversial collection of short stories by JT LeRoy (which was a pen name used by the writer Laura Albert), The Heart is Deceitful About All Things covers three years in the life of Jeremiah and his dug addict mother Sarah. Over the course of the film, Jeremiah is played by thee different actors — Jimmy Bennett at age 7 and, at age 10, Cole and Dylan Sprouse. Sarah is fearlessly played by the film’s director, Asia Argento.

Partially in response to her extremely religious upbringing, Sarah spends most of her time drinking, smoking meth, and moving from man to man, the majority of whom treat both her and her son badly. It looks like things are going to get better when Sarah marries the seemingly stable Emerson (Jeremy Renner) but, when Sarah suddenly abandons both her husband and her son so that she can go to Atlantic City, Emerson rapes Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is sent to live with his grandfather (Peter Fonda) and grandmother (Ornella Muti) who, it turns out, are members of an ultra-religious cult. Thought Jeremiah initially manages to bond with his cousin Buddy (Michael Pitt), life in the cult proves to be no safer than life with his mother. After three years with the cult, Jeremiah is standing on a street corner and yelling that everyone is going to go to Hell unless they repent when he is suddenly approached by Sarah. Sarah grabs him and carries him over to a nearby truck that is being driven by her current boyfriend.

Sarah now supports herself as a dancer and as a prostitute. When she realizes that the presence of her son is making men reluctant to pay for her, Sarah grows out Jeremiah’s hair and starts to dress him in her old clothes so that she can pass him off as being her younger sister.

Eventually, Sarah and Jeremiah find themselves living with amiable but slow-witted meth addict Jackson (Marilyn Manson) and that’s when things really start to head down hill…

In some ways, The Heart Is Deceitful About All Things is a difficult film to recommend because it is so extremely dark and depressing. Much as in her debut film, Scarlet Diva, Asia Argento refuses to compromise on the bleakness of her vision. She set out to make a realistic portrait of what it’s like to live on the fringes of American society and that’s exactly what she did. If the end result is depressing…well, the fringes aren’t exactly a happy place. In the end, you’re actually happy that the film is full of familiar actors like Argento, Michael Pitt, Peter Fonda, and Winona Ryder because you need that reminder that, ultimately, you’re watching a movie and that everyone was able to go home after they finished filming.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things may not be easy to enjoy but it is a film that, as a result of its uncompromising vision, ultimately wins your respect.