Candy Jar

Lona and Bennett have been competing since kindergarten, maybe egged by their mothers who seem to have some issues that need to be resolved. And now college is beckoning them - Havard - or Yale - or not. Partly to look good on their CVs they are in the school debate club. But here everything gets very strange as competitive debating seems to have degenerated into a kind of bizarre speed talking contest in which points of evidence are made so fast that scarcely anyone understands.

Lona and Bennett are in some ways hugely similar and in others diametrically opposed so boy - girl, black - white, but both with single mothers, both geeks, bookworms, loners, and both very much attached to Kathy, a school counselor whose room is filled with the candy jars that give the film its title.

It's an unusual idea but it makes the film fresh and different. For me, the nonsensical debating process was a bit of a distraction, but maybe the very fact that we don't understand what they're struggling to achieve, let alone the actual arguments they make, maybe that helps us focus on them and how they matter more.

This is a drive-you-nuts pointless film with two annoying and abnormal private high schoolers, one male and one female who started a debate club and simply couldn't agree on anything with each other, and both would not back off from their two-member-only debate club for who should be the president of the club, who's more entitled either by birth date or seniority at school. The main purpose was to falsify on their college application with a title of a club presidency.

From the very beginning, we just have these two people blah, blah and blah to disagree on everything, chewing up lot of candy from the candy jars on their private school consultant's desk. We have so many phony and couldn't-care-less people at school, and two blindly support their kid's mothers.

We didn't see anything about the education, the study, the....No, nothing but constantly arguing between these two brats. It's just getting more and more annoying after awhile. This film is not about the generally normal kids in the public school system but two spoiled private high schoolers who never agreed on anything with each other. I just gave up sooner than later since I couldn't care less. Netflix may have a lot of money to burn, but they seem to have lost, more like whatever scripts they got, they'd put them into production, no matter what.

This is a cute coming of age store about two very competitive teens in their senior year of high school. Bennett wants to get into Yale, Lona wants Harvard, and both are very good at debate. Their rivalry gets in their own way however and they must learn to work together... somehow.

This movie doesn't try to be more than what it is, a cute story about teenagers falling in love, about growing up, about the pressures of getting into colleges. But rapid dialogue and cute chemistry make this very enjoyable and fun to watch.

I was actually enjoying this but had to switch off because of the relentless background which was really distracting and gave me an ear worm long after the film. Clearly it was aimed at making it quirkier but it was the same tune rehashed over and over and it drowned out the performances, which was a shame as the two young leads were very engaging. I wish they wouldn't add music to everything and just trust the performances to carry the film.

For the teen romance crowd, this movie has a good premise with two warring teens in the debate club who inevitably fall for each other. But it's actually so frenetic and fast-paced that half the dialogue you will miss as it whirls from one joke to the next. There's a rhythm to comedy and you have to let moments build and sit. This movie has its own unique rhythm to it, and it's fun in a lot of ways, but I just don't think it worked as well as it could have.