Sweethearts

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.

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.

..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.

With a few thousand reviews here, I have discovered that some films only make sense if you put them in context. Films entirely about teenagers did not really exist until the 1960s, and even then most of those involved silly settings like the beach or the malt shop. By the 70s, creators had decided the real purpose of a teen film should be to scare other teens, hence the so-called slasher decade. By the 1980s, the teen film evolved again, and we had the raunch-com. Porkys. Revenge of the Nerds. This proved to be a popular spin as evidenced by the fact that, a half-century later, they are still making them. SWEETHEARTs 2024 is a raunch-com with a weak premise duly supported by an equally weak script. The only redeeming factor is Shipka, who can mug and pout with the best of them. But at age 25, there are not a lot of teen roles left for her, so her fans should enjoy this while they can. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

"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.