This Netflix romantic comedy falls quite short of what it is trying to be but the chemistry between the two main stars and some good humor make this work.
This is a rare romantic comedy where a nonromantic friendship is treated as just as important to the plot as the romance and is frankly a lot more interesting. The story has Ellie (Leah Lewis) writing love letters for her friend Paul (Daniel Diemer), only to fall for the girl he has a crush on. Whenever either is with their crush, Aster (Alexxis Lemire), the film comes to a screeching halt. Neither has much of a chemistry with her and this makes these scenes very bland and kinda boring. There are plenty of people who will applaud this movie for having a possible lesbian love story, but regardless of intentions it is still rather poorly done. However what works extremely well here is the friendship between Ellie and Paul. This is the saving grace for this movie and overcomes many of the film's faults. There is a true sweetness to this relationship. This is not a friendship that you ever thought would happen and if it did you would assume they would have little to talk about, yet it grows into something completely real and beautiful. With so many films favoring a beautiful romance over a beautiful friendship, this gave the movie a strong appeal to me. I have had deep friendships that have meant the world to me and it seems strange that these beautiful relationships hardly get their due in movies. There are even scenes between the two of them that can be described as much more than lovely.
This is a romantic comedy so of course there has to be comedy. While some of this comedy does fall very flat, the comedy that works is delightful and certainly brightens up the film.
Despite being in many ways an unusual romantic comedy, this movie does fall into many of the clichés. This is especially true concerning dialogue and many of the side characters personalities. The narration at the beginning almost turned me off feeling much too forced and like what I have heard in other movies many times. The love interest is as bland and uninteresting of a character as can be, spouting off cliché lines like we are supposed to view them as beautiful or deep. The bullies are certainly the worst part. They have no personality and spout off cliché bully lines that have been in movies for decades. What makes them worse is that the story would have worked just as well without them or their clumsy dialogue.
This is a very faulted movie, yet what works does really work.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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