The cinematography is authentic, with smooth, moving shots of the beautiful setting in New Jersey. The movie’s production also adds to the movie’s rawness.
It’s not afraid to be dark and talk about trauma, which is laudable. Her natural demeanor is standoffish and rude and comes off as “I’m so edgy, and I hate everyone.” It makes her uninteresting and unlikeable, at least until she later opens up and becomes more of a person and less of a caricature.Īmid the faux-deepness there are some great moments, like the climactic argument between Henry and Grace in her bedroom toward the end of the film. Grace falls victim to the cliches more often. Despite his beginning monologue painting him as an uncool loser because he only has two friends and nothing remarkable has ever happened in his life, he’s still cool enough to be smoking someone else’s weed and to get invited to a party in the first place. His gauche-but-still-cool demeanor betrays the typical awkward protagonist and is someone many high school students relate to.Īlthough Henry isn’t the most popular kid at school, he still goes to parties and has a close group of core friends. Abrams and Reinhart portray the characters well, but Abrams takes it the extra step.
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But the movie does deserve some praise for taking the road somewhat less traveled by including heartbreak and trauma, especially because it’s not at the expense of the believability of the film.