Sweethearts

..the director kept insisting going back to the boring "coming out" side quest. To be fair, Caleb Hearon is good with his filler part but somehow the script keeps insisting in staying too long in what should've been just a gag deflating the main story. No doubt, the reason for this is that the main premise doesn't justify 90mns. Actually, this could've been a great 60mns of Kiernan Shipka, Ava DeMary, Charlie Hall and Nico Hiraga's story. Instead, we get a strong first act cut by a boring second act focused on an unnecessary "message" , and a weak third that tries to be original while paying an "homage" to "When Harry Met Sally". At the end we get the familiar performance from Shipka - who, surprisingly, looks physically weak and way older than her 25 years. Nico Hiraga tries to charm as the weak modern boy. Ava DeMary shines as the wildcard, while Charlie Hall gets boxed in a sad jock cliché. Overall, Sweethearts is only half good.

I've noticed this in most Gen Z rom-coms-most of the "com" in these new-age flicks happen when Gen Zs are basically interacting with millennials or boomers. In this film too, that's mostly the case. So, you end up getting a fun little stretch in a bus where Kiernan Shipka argues with an older co-passenger, a sincere scene where Caleb Hearon comes out (with another gay couple being his only audience), and a little tribute to When Harry Met Sally..., though these are some of the only high points. Also, my dude, Nico Hiraga was thirsted on by four girls (including his girlfriend, of course) in a span of like 12 hours, but he's painted as a dorky pushover for the entire first act in college-something's off with the character sketch here. I'll give marks for the trope subversion at the end, which plays into the film's overall light-hearted, non-dramatic tone. And okay, wow, director Jordan Weiss-you're so PHOTOGENIC! I look forward to your next.

I was reading the previous reviews and noticed peoples mentioning "When Harry met Sally". I never saw that movie so i can't really compare them, but for me this felt like a toned down Superbad injected with useless woke stuff. Let me explain.

So you got 2 characters that go on a night of mischiefs, trying to acomplish a certain goal, but adventure happens to them. At the same time, another character is seperated from the group and goes on his own personal quest. Inject parties, boose and lust in there, and you have a formula getting very close to the afformentioned Superbad... exept its nowhere executed as well.

For a start the movie is very tame. Someone called it a "raunch-com", and maybe for today's standard it could be, but as a huge fan of this genre from the 2000s up until mid 2010s, it is VERY light on the raunch.

And of course you got some "woke stuff" injected in there to remind us of "current days" ... seriously Hollywood, you need to stop with this.

You got that side character Palmer going on a completely absurd and improbable side story. I didn't mind his journey as being gay in itself, its just so poorly executed and the "love interest" is basically an 8 or 9 out of 10 while the guy is like a 1 or 2... Everytime it switched to that character i was rolling my eyes how absurde it was.

Thanksfully the 2 main characters were more interesting, especially Ben. When it comes to Kiernan Shipka, i am still on the fence about her as an actress. I have not watch Sabrina yet, so ill have a better idea when i do. She was fine in this, but i feel she has a good comedy potential but the roles need to tap more into that potential. Also it may be just a coincidence, but she seem to lean into woke movies a bit (Totally Killer for instance).

Overall its not a bad movie, but its just lacking something. Its not funny enough to be a great comedy, its not romantic enough to be a great romance, it tease into the raunch but never really go deep enough, and overall you do feel a bit the "padding" to make it a full feature film.

With all that said, i did enjoyed some parts, i wasn't bored per say, and the cringe woke parts were not "overly cringy" to be offensive, just the movie would had been better without them. Ill still give it a 6 out of 10.

Sweethearts (2024) is an okay enough rom-com for this year's Thanksgiving, but I was expecting a little bit more from this movie.

Positives for Sweethearts (2024): Kiernan Shipka and Nico Hiraga are decent as Jamie and Ben. It was fun to see a Rom-Com taking place during the Thanksgiving holiday. I liked the idea of these two stories and the journey of the two sets of characters as they try to meet each other before Thanksgiving. And finally, I can see people having fun with this movie during the Thanksgiving season.

Negatives for Sweethearts (2024): The execution in the movie is a little wonky at times. The movie feels rushed like they didn't know what to do with the plot. And finally, the main goal for our lead characters felt very underwhelming.

Overall, Sweethearts (2024) is an okay Rom-Com movie sent during Thanksgiving that had some potential, but got lost in the execution.

"Sweethearts" has fragments of a decent movie but overall doesn't work due to horrible pacing and not enough focus on the main relationship. Basically the first and last 10 minutes of the movie which focus on the main characters are solid while the rest of the movie is a complete disaster.

Way too much time is spent on pointless cliches in the side character's subplot and the inane misadventure to find their 'sweethearts'. This leads to an underdeveloped relationship between the main characters, causing me to not really care about them at all.

They should have tightened the plot and focused significantly more time on the main characters and their relationship and I think this could have at least been an average romantic comedy instead of the (mostly) derivative snorefest it ended up being.