NB: Netflix has been getting into the romantic comedy game recently and we’re all very curious about their offerings. Big thank you to Heather T. for separating the wheat from the chaff for us!
Heather T. is a lawyer in the Midwest with two wicked cats. In addition to watching a lot of tv and (of course) reading, she loves to cook.
If you want to see Heather T.’s Best of Netflix’s 2018 Romantic Comedies, you can find the list here!
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It’s been a long holiday with bad weather where I am, so I’ve been bingeing on movies made by Netflix in 2018. I saw at least one great rom com and some really terrible ones.
Here are three short reviews of the worst.
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Alex Strangelove – Grade: C
This movie started well but then went off the rails. Alex Truelove is a smart, charming kid who is in a long-term relationship with his terrific girlfriend Claire. They’ve been together awhile and she’s eager to get on with the sexing. He agrees that he also wants that, yes, for sure he does, yep – going to get right on that. Then, when Alex meets a gay guy at a party and subsequently spends time with him, Alex starts questioning his sexuality.
This movie had problematic supporting characters. Alex’s best friend serves as comic relief, but he’s not funny unless you think that licking exotic frogs, getting high, eating and then throwing up gummy worms is funny. Also, there is a scene where the best friend is offhandedly cruel to a gender-fluid person (who doesn’t get to speak – they are just there as a foil). Strangely, the whole scene was maybe intended to demonstrate that being gay isn’t that big a deal? It was wildly off.
In another scene, a Plot Device Girl eagerly reconnects with her boyfriend after he beats up Alex, because girls love violent men? Again, the message was troubling. One more thing: the language in this movie is REALLY explicit and the sex scenes are not fade away. This is not a PG or even PG-13 movie even though it is touted as a teen rom com.
Importantly, the movie does not do a good job of setting up why it is so difficult for Alex to come to grips with being gay. There is a drop-in flashback that supposedly explains it all, but it comes a bit late and wasn’t convincing. A quick look on the Interwebz validated my reaction. A recurring comment was that this is “what straight people must think being gay is like.” The one thing about the movie that felt genuine is Alex’s relationship with Claire – he really does love her even if he isn’t sexually attracted to her, and his grief at causing her pain rang true. However, the rest of the movie landed with a thud. For a better rom-com teen movie about coming out, try Love, Simon, which doesn’t hit so many sour notes.
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The Kissing Booth – Grade: D-
This movie was a hot mess. The setup is that Elle (girl) and Lee (boy) are born on the same day to moms who are best friends, so Elle and Lee become inseparable best friends. When they are teenagers, they decide to set up a kissing booth as a fundraiser at school (perfectly plausible in 2018, right?), and Elle kisses Lee’s older brother, Noah. This leads to a forbidden relationship with Noah (under the “friendship rules,” he’s “off limits”).
The relationship with Noah was completely unbelievable and a bit squicky since there was an “older guy/younger female family member” vibe. Also, Noah is a controlling asshat. Despite the two families spending so much time together, the only thing that Elle appears to know about Noah is that he gets into a lot of fights and he’s got a hot bod. The only thing that Noah seems to know about Elle is that he is in LURRRVE with her. In an apparent attempt to show that Noah has something going on besides good looks, the screenwriters drop it in that Noah got into Harvard (see, he’s smart!) but this comes as a shock to Elle, who is surprised to see Noah reading a book. Tellingly, Elle makes a pro-con list of having a relationship with Noah and the only things on the pro side are “good kisser” and “smells yummy.” These things do not a relationship make.
This movie raised so many questions:
How is it that a kissing booth would be a thing at a school-sanctioned event?
Why is everyone clapping and cheering when the kissing booth patrons take more than what is on offer?
How is it that the kissing booth is credited with the entire relationship between Noah and Elle?
How did I not smash my television when Noah tells Elle that she’s cute when she’s bossy?
How does a guy whose entire school career consists of getting into fights get into Harvard?
Why can we not go 15 minutes without seeing Elle’s underwear?
Here, wait, who is that girl that Lee is suddenly in a relationship with?
The movie does not answer any of these questions, and I did not for a minute buy the Noah-Elle romance.
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Sierra Burgess is a Loser – Grade: F
Sierra Burgess, played by Shannon Purser (Barb from Stranger Things) is smart but not conventionally attractive. Despite Shannon Purser’s charm, she can’t save this sorry mess of a movie. Sierra gets a text from a Cute Boy, who thinks he’s texting Veronica, the mean pretty girl. Once Sierra understands who Cute Boy (I saw the movie last night but can’t remember his name) thinks he’s texting, she befriends Veronica so that she (Sierra) can keep the “relationship” with Cute Boy going. Thus, the entire romance is based on catfishing. The reason why Veronica goes along with this makes no sense, but Veronica turns out to have hidden depths and a true friendship blooms between Sierra and Veronica even as they conspire to trick Cute Boy into believing he’s having a relationship with Veronica.
The catfishing alone would earn this movie a hard “Nope,” but there’s more. There’s a bizarre side plot where Sierra, who is supposedly smart, doesn’t realize that good grades won’t be enough to get into Stanford, so she does stupid things to stand out. For example, she tries out for the boy’s track team even though she can’t run at all. This is played for laughs – fat girl tries to do hurdles.
Hilarious. Sierra’s best friend is a Black guy who serves primarily to say “Guurrrllll!” He’s completely one-dimensional (I can’t remember his name either).
Then there’s the part where Sierra pretends to be deaf so Cute Boy won’t recognize her voice – only it turns out that his brother is actually deaf, so Sierra’s pretend sign language doesn’t work. Hilarious.
Speaking of the deaf brother, Cute Boy is (like most of the characters) one-dimensional, so the deaf brother appears to be a plot device to tell us that Cute Boy is a great guy — you know — because he’s nice to his deaf brother.
At the climax of the movie, Sierra, angry because she mistakenly believes that Veronica is macking on Cute Boy, does something viciously, publicly awful to Veronica. This destroys Veronica and hurts Cute Boy (who learns the truth about the catfishing and about Sierra not being deaf). I could not imagine how the movie could possibly redeem Sierra after she’s done something so vindictive to her friend (and the catfishing thing too). But I needn’t have worried – the movie drops in a handwavy plot device, and Sierra never even has to say that she’s sorry but just shrugs ruefully and all is forgiven.
Nope.
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Have you read any of the movies on this list? Do you agree with Heather T’s grades?
I’ve watched the kissing booth and Sierra Burgess. Completely agree with both grades. Sierra Burgess made me so mad. That movie should not have to ended with her getting the guy. I was so mad at her for treating Veronica the way she did. Gah! There was a lot of rage at the end of that movie!
The kissing booth was also terrible. As I was watching I kept thinking about how awkward the interactions were. Noah gave me the creeps.
I didn’t like SIERRA BURGESS either. It just wasn’t as fun/charming as some of the other Netflix movies. I also found the kissing scene halfway through the movie to be pretty ridiculous.
Plus, I really did not like the weird electronic score. I found it very distracting/jarring/overbearing at times.
Ok—old lady comment here, but these high-school/teen romances are objectively horrible to the eyes of we “mature” folks, but I’m more concerned of the message they’re sending to the teens who are (presumably?) their target audience. You’d think someone at Netflix would say, “Um, kissing booth, catfishing, the black character whose sole purpose is to say ‘Guuurrrl,’—perhaps we should revisit.” But I suppose everything’s just product in the pipeline these days. Sigh.
Hi — HeatherT here — a commenter on my review of the good movies pointed out that all of them had women directors, so I looked up who directed these three movies, and it was all men. I wonder whether that plays in to any of this.
Also, I was looking at something and saw that maybe the romantic lead in “Kissing Booth” was named Flynn, not Noah. It just goes to show how little I cared about that character and that movie!
So are all Netflix romance movies about teenagers, or just the bad ones?
With The Kissing Booth, I got some icky Twilight vibes from it.
It was like an ewwy teenage version of 50 Shades.
Why the hell are we making movies out of these cringy, borderline-creepy romances?
Why are people even writing or reading this crap?
Heather T, I thought the same thing, and was not surprised to see that the directors are all men. So many feelings about how doing an “OK” or sub-par job is enough for men to be successful.
I have read many movies. 😉
@Sam Victors: Don’t forget 50 SHADES was originally developed from TWILIGHT fan-fic—which was some really creepy controlling teen stuff. Now 50 SHADES is influencing teenage films. Things have come full circle.
@HeatherT, the hero of the Kissing Booth was Noah Flynn. We know he’s the cool brother because everyone calls him by his last name whereas Lee is simply Lee.
I’ve seen The Kissing Booth twice and it is like the car crash on the side of the road–awful, but you can’t look away. My major issues with it are Flynn’s anger and Lee’s possessiveness. We’ve all read the forbidden love books where the heroine’s brother doesn’t want her to get involved with his best friend and I felt this was a take on that trope, except it is the hero’s brother that doesn’t want him to get involved with his best friend. Lee’s totally jealous of Flynn and acts as if Elle belongs to him. She’s the only thing that he has that Flynn doesn’t and the idea that she could possibly be involved with Flynn threw him into a tailspin.
As for Flynn’s anger–this felt like it should have been a much bigger thing than it was. The line about him being in therapy was not enough to make me feel better about him, and I kept thinking that Elle needed to be far away from him when he imploded.
I found the Kissing Booth icky and awkward to watch. I really didn’t like Noah.
I don’t disagree with anything you said about Sierra Burgess either. I thought it was a teen remake of The Truth About Cats and Dogs. I agree that Sierra’s redemption was non-existent and she didn’t deserve the guy.
I haven’t seen the other one.
I enjoyed Alex Strangelove, but I also think it was poorly done and a pretty bad movie. The main reason I loved it was because I desperately adored Claire, and her relationship with Alex was so lovely. I guess I’m glad they end up staying friends, even though I’m sure she’ll have trust issues for the rest of her life…
As for The Kissing Booth, wtf. I think I watched it while I was drunk, so I kind of liked it. Noah Flynn’s face and hair bothered me, which isn’t necessarily his fault. But mainly, the Flynn brothers were a hot mess. Bleh. After seeing her in Batman, I was excited to see Joey King in things as an adult, but now I’m feeling bleh about her.
And Sierra Burgess. I basically think of this movie as Netflix being like “see, Barb lives!” That’s the only reason I can think of for the weird and totally unfitting Stranger Things-style soundtrack. Also, this movie gave me lots of gross feelings about consent–especially the kiss scene in the middle, where Sierra and Veronica switch places so that Sierra can secretly kiss Peter Kavinsky (idk what his name is in this movie) WITHOUT HIS CONSENT. Yuck. YUCK. And Sierra is SO HORRIBLE to Veronica. Like yeah, her song was pretty and whatever, but honestly by the end of the movie I was ready for my beloved Veronica and Whatsisname to ride off into the sunset while Sierra cried over a Stanford rejection letter.
Sorry. I have a lot of feelings about these things and I didn’t realize other people agreed with me. Yay!
@DonnaMarie, Netflix has Our Souls At Night with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda that’s a romantic drama and I enjoyed it. I’m sure there’s others that aren’t high school or young adults (like Set It Up), but I can’t think of any offhand.
I kept seeing people recommend The Kissing Booth and Sierra Burgess, but the descriptions turned me off of watching them. Then I started seeing some detractors that made me feel justified in my decision to not watch them. Alex Strangelove I had wanted to check out and I still may, but it’s getting pushed down on my massive to-be-watched list now.
Thank you Heather T for watching these, so we don’t have to!
I had been avoiding all three of these. Thanks for watching and reviewing and letting me know I was right in my misgivings.
Anyone watch the “A Christmas Prince” sequel? I stomached the first one because of “So Bad it’s Good”, but I tried the sequel and did not last five minutes.
@DonnaMarie- I’ve wondered the same about just not Netflix, but all new romantic comedies. I’m a huge fan of classic movies, and part of the reason is the romance was between adults. With both drama and comedies, they show adults having romantic interludes. Some of my favorites…
The More the Merrier -one of the hottest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie-Joel McCrea with his big hands all over Jean Arthur’s face and shoulders when he walked her home!
I Know Where I’m Going-Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller at the ceilidh? I’ve seen a lot of romantic movies, and when he turns to her when she is on the ladder-I melt.
Philadelphia Story- a movie with Katherine Hepburn, and Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart as potential love interests? Add Ruth Hussey as a wisecracking maybe girlfriend of Stewart-a treasure.
All About Eve-Bette Davis fell in love with her leading man, Gary Merrill on this film. A wonderful supporting cast, in fact I hate to say supporting since they are all incredible. To me, a perfect film!
I love film, and I can’t say how disappointed I am that the romantic comedy has fallen by the wayside. I hope the cable companies will pick up the slack, but what I’ve seen does seem to be very youth oriented.
I’m still living the results of falling in love with a man in denial about his sexuality, who decided ‘this girl is cute and seems to like me, I’ll go with it until I’m over my issues about coming out’.
So Alex Strangelove? All of the noes. It’s not a ‘comedy situation’, it’s messy and someone always gets hurt.
I’ll go against the current and say that I enjoyed THE KISSING BOOTH. I guess I got caught up in the story and didn’t see any of the bad stuff… It’s fluff, and I was entertained. I liked the actress a lot, actually. I thought she did a great job.