It’s hard to believe that this a series started with Harry Styles. Originally a Wattpad fanfiction based on the British pop star, the four-book series is now a film franchise. However, the character based on Styles is a stark contrast to his colorful persona. Styles’ persona is bright, eccentric and summery. Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is dark, brooding and annoyingly angsty. Frankly, he is every single Wattpad bad boy rolled into one toxic person. Contrast this with Tessa’s (Josephine Langford) career-driven yet equally toxic personality, and it becomes a relationship built on nothing but sex and extreme codependency.
The film begins with Tessa having to face her family issues as well as both the anxiety and excitement surrounding her potential move to Seattle. However, Hardin, the one person she is supposed to rely on for emotional support, is as unreliable as ever. He becomes furious upon learning of her potential move, and his anger leads to yet another falling out of the couple. The rest of the film shows them trying to repair their relationship and deal with their own personal issues.
But, the keyword here is trying. Very little progress is made in the way of their issues, and there is still a considerable amount of toxicity in their relationship. The focal point of this movie is toxicity, but it’s presented in such a way that it’s almost glorified. The characters, particularly Hardin, routinely hurt each other, apologize and try to make it up to the other through sex or promises. But, nothing ever gets fully fixed. This leads to a constant cycle of pain, apologies and empty promises to do better, only for the cycle to keep repeating itself.
Furthermore, Hardin is extremely controlling of Tessa throughout the whole movie. Upon learning that she would be happy to see Trevor (Dylan Sprouse), he explodes on her. On the other hand, Tessa learns that Hardin is going to see a friend from his past, and consequently, goes out with a guy she had just met to make him jealous.
Another less-than-appealing aspect of the movie is the amount of sex scenes. The film fully takes advantage of its R rating and shows multiple sex scenes between the characters. It even brings in kinks, which might not be appropriate for the young audience that the less gratuitous and obscene first film reeled in. Furthermore, this adds dramatically to the theme of toxicity, since sex seems to be the one consistent part of their relationship. If sex is the only stable ground of a relationship, then that relationship is not healthy.
In fact, the times in the movie where they are apart, they are clearly happier. When Tessa is on her own, it shows her putting her time and energy into her job, the one thing for which she’s been consistently excited and happy. When Hardin is on his own, it even shows him getting better. He begins working on himself physically and trying to get his grades up. But once they reunite, the toxicity begins to return. Their relationship is like fire and gasoline: bright and hot, but extremely destructive.
Only adding to the film’s overall mediocrity is the shoehorned family drama. The first two films briefly touched on the family issues both Hardin and Tessa are affected by, but these issues take center stage here without much buildup. The first part of the movie shows Tessa rushing through her own family drama with her dad before doing a total 180 and shifting towards Hardin’s unresolved issues with his own dad.
While the film brings moderate civility into their relationship, it then jumps to sudden drama with his mom. This part felt incredibly forced, meant to make the audience feel sympathy toward him. However, feeling sympathy toward him doesn’t erase all of the bad things he’s done towards Tessa and everyone else in his life.
Plus, while the first two films were by no means comedies, they at least had some form of comic relief, whereas this movie had none. In the first installment, there were instances where Tessa’s naivety is played for laughs. In the second movie, Trevor delivered a lot of dryly comedic lines. In this movie, there’s frankly none of that. Aside from an occasional funny line from Landon (Chance Perdomo), there’s really no intentional comedy in the film. The only real comedy comes from the occasional cringey line.
However, not everything in the movie is bad. Although at times, like previously mentioned, the dialogue was cringey, it also feels a lot more natural than the previous two. The lines just aren’t as awkward and flow together rather than being extremely disjointed and forced. Furthermore, the actors are quite capable with their script. Tessa and Hardin’s drama feels a lot less awkward and more genuine. It’s actually quite nice to see how Langford and Tiffin’s acting abilities have progressed since the first film. While a significant amount of the lines in the first installment were delivered in a way that made it feel forced, the third installment showed that they have genuine acting chops. The side characters were played quite naturally as well, making it feel a lot more realistic.
Overall, this film is not great. It’s not terrible, but it’s by no means a good film. The two protagonists we’re supposed to root for are trapped in a bad relationship, they’re surrounded by forced family drama and their only solace in their toxicity is sex. But, there is still one more film set to be released in 2022, so let’s hope that either Tessa and Hardin can permanently fix their relationship, or the couple will go their separate ways and find happiness outside of each other.
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