Looks That Kill

TL;DR: If you've loved The Fault in Our Stars and the sorts, you can't miss this; if you (like myself) hated it, you should still give this one a chance - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Whenever I finish a movie, the first thing I do is to check online for reviews; I like to see other people's opinion about it, wheter they agree with mine or not. It makes for an enriching experience.

So imagine my surprise when, coming here after watching this movie, I found out that not only there's not a single review about it, but also so few people have seen (the vote count as I'm writing is only at 177)! I mean, really? This is by no means a B movie (which usually have ten times as many ratings), and it's already been three days since it was released. For such a delightfully charming one, it's too much of an injustice, so here's my attempt to repair that a tiny bit.

Watching the trailer you might be tricked into thinking this is a silly YA rom-com, and sure enought I begins that way. But it soon goes from silly to charming, from charming to heartbreaking... don't get me wrong, at its heart this is still very much a YA rom-com, with all of it's clichés and pitfalls, nothing groundbreaking. But the way it blend those with some more dense elements (one of them being almost too somber) feels so right that you can't help but be captured by it; I've mentioned The Fault in Our Stars at the beginning, but in this sense it's much more akin to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

A lot of it goes to the impeccable production and cast. Both protagonists (Flynn and Telles) are so natural that they manage to somehow hoover above you're average in-love teen couple. The supporting characters are also on spot, including some hilarious ones having little to no lines at all. But what impressed me the most was the special care given to the cinematography, which leverages the movie concept to create some really eye-caching close-ups. All of this combined with a lot of funny references to '90s nerd culture. Considering that this is the first feature film of director Kellen Moore, it's even more impressive.

Of all of those tragic-teen-romance movies that have become a genre in and of itself, this is the only one that I've actually enjoyed. Give it a try - even if you don't like it as much, I think you'll agree that it deserves a LOT more attention than it's getting.

Think Brandon Flynn is the next coming of James Franco. Plays the incredibly good looking guy that it is totally awkward and uncomfortable in a totally believable way, not an easy combination to hit. Really enjoyed this movie.

With that being said I really liked the concept of this movie. I've only seen the first season of 13 reasons why so I haven't see a lot of Flynn in anything to know a lot about his acting. The movie started off quite dark and I was thinking it would be more drama then comedy however it quickly switched gears to be a comedy. I thought it might be some super dark comedy but instead it was just some average teen romance movie with a weird quirk in it. Flynn and his co star do an alright job but the movie doesn't really give them a lot to do. They kind of just walk around a lot.

My main problem with this movie is plausibility. Max (Flynn's character) kills anybody that sees his face. But he has lived his whole life without being arrested, and someone doctors or scientists aren't trying to run tests on him? As well as the fact that the whole seeing his face thing is never explained. Realistically for a lot of the movie only his nose and forehead are covered. What counts as seeing his face? Could he wear one bandage around His noise and have it count? It's just never really explained, which I wouldn't mind if the movie didn't put so much emphasis on the fact he has such a hard time making friends cause nobody wants to be around him.

Overall, it's an alright cheesy movie. Right up my friend Kiz's alley but it didn't blow me away. The last 30 minutes are also pretty slow.

If Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Michel Gondry and John Hughes Had An Awkward Love Child. This is an unusual romantic comedy with visual cues of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton with some magicality of Gondry, but the main driving factor is the surprisingly heartful drama that brings back memories of some great John Hughes Dramedies of the 80's. Brandon Flynn stars as a young boy that is lethally attractive, his dry presentation of Max could fit into the ensemble cast of any Wes Anderson film or maybe it draws back memories of an extremely attractive Johnny Depp getting covered in makeup and scars so he's unrecognizable by Tim Burton just this time Moore covers the young heart-throb Flynn in bandages and sunglasses vs makeup and scissor-hands. There is a magical sequence at the end of the movie that would make Gondry jealous, I won't give it away, but is a powerful kicker to an impressive first effort by Moore.

This is a quirky little movie that seems like it's gonna be super light hearted and fun YA ride, but as the story moves along and you connect with the characters, Director Kellen Moore really hits the emotion button hard and packs in a surprising amount of heart into the final chapters of the film. Really enjoyed the watch!