Date: 2018
Director: Ian Samuels
Actors/ Characters: Shannon Purser/ Sierra, Kristine Froseth/ Veronica, RJ Cyler/ Dan, Noah Centineo/ Jamey
Summary: A case of mistaken identity results in unexpected romance when the most popular girl in high school and the biggest loser must come together to win over their crushes.
-------------------------------------------------------------
So Netflix have taken over the release of teen movies and paved a new era of teen cinema. Honestly it wasn't hard to see coming considering the popularity of online streaming especially with millennials. Following the success of To All The Boys I've Loved Before, I was quite excited for this film to come out, I was skeptical about the plot and general message of the film however and I was right to be. I found so many issues within this movie and the message it inevitably sent to audiences.
The first issue that I noticed about the film was the actual plot of the film I felt it was just generic and extremely predictable. Initially we are presented with stereotypical characters such as the 'outcast', the 'mean girl' and the 'jock'. Then in an incredibly obvious turn of events the characters are actually much more than their labels. This method of storytelling and development is cliche and unoriginal which made it very predictable to me and therefore I found the payoff unsatisfying.
The entirety of the film centres around the theme of body image and issues surrounding self esteem. The film is clearly trying to send the message that everyone is perfect and it's what's on the inside that counts but honestly just falls flat. It is an extremely outdated and problematic notion that in film's the pretty girls are always horrible and the conventionally unattractive girls are the protagonist and always have unflawed personalities. The surface level ideologies that lie at the heart of this film are regressive and highlight a lack of change within the teen romance genre. Sadly this film tried to avoid conforming to stereotypes and attempted to change certain aspects of its genre but ended up becoming everything it was trying to avoid.
One of the more minor problematic qualities of the film that I want to point out also is the fact that the films only real black representation comes through the form of the 'best friend/ sidekick' character, Dan. This is a harmful trope in cinema in which black characters are often overshadowed by white lead protagonists and this film conforms to this concept which irked me slightly.
Last but not least, Sierra is a straight up terrible person. I don't know anyone in their right mind would forgive her for what she did. Let's imagine for a second that Sierra looked like Veronica... If she had catfished, lied and humiliated one of her best friends she would never have been forgiven but purely because she is 'conventionally unattractive' she is pretty much instantly forgiven for her sins. This is perhaps the most problematic and concerning element of the film and made me so angry because she didn't earn any redemption by writing her wrongs she merely wrote a song and all was forgiven.