First Love - Descobrindo o Amor

You know when you spend all your day studing and after dinner you just want to watch a teenage-rom-com and go to bed??

Well, this is not the right movie. But I really don't know a right moment to watch it.

I don't want to be mean but I hated it.

I felt really embarassed for the actors in the "romantic" scenes.

2 stars only because Hero (Jim) is really handsome.

That's it. The entire film is a pulseless drag with no flavor; a compilation of artificial moments in a pseudo-romance with no tangible conflict, jarringly interspersed with the story of a middle aged couple having issues due to financial crisis.

I usually struggle to keep my reviews concise, but this time I'm grasping for things to say and, for the life of me, cannot find them.

I picked this up because the two leads are pretty and I wanted some cheesy, dumb-as-rocks youthful romance to pass the time. What I ended up getting was something that tasted more bland than hospital food. Scratch that: the food I had when I was last in the hospital gave me a more impactful sensory experience than this.

More than a romance story this is a story about life's ups and downs, family, and people's personal growth journeys. I like that this movie doesn't stray from a realistic path. It's not overly emotional but puts emphasis on life's truly hard moments. The main perspectives are relationships- between husband and wife (and vaguely extended family), mother and son, and first loves.

There are some plot holes- where was the proposal, what was the note that Jim received when he was working? Some of the holes seem intentional to show the passing of time but I feel like filling out other details would have added more depth to the characters.

Overall a very solid story but I really think this storyline could have taken viewers many places and I wish we saw more character depth.

I also don't know if a younger audience would get much out of this. As someone almost to the middle of life I appreciate the wisdom but it lacks a spark, which life is also full of.

The reviews for this are absolutely terrible. I think everyone is a bit dramatic saying it's "a waste of 2 hours" but maybe I've just seen a lot of really bad movies and this one really wasn't the worst. It was not really about love it was about dealing with financial issues and the toll it takes on a family, So it is very misleading to call it "first love". The acting was just ok and I felt no desire for the watered down love story they portrayed to have a happy ending. There were many characters like the aunt and the brother who were in the movie for a few seconds or minutes and added absolutely nothing. It definitely didn't have anything special about it. A fairly forgettable movie.

Anyway... the movie; I've never used wattpad but this is what I've always assumed it's like. The movie starts out alright, I didn't have any expectations going in. Nothing original but I like it for some reason, probably just because I love movies about love. About 15min in, Anna's mum tells Anna to be hoe, insinuates it at the least and repeats it later in the movie. That was my least favorite part of the film.

There's a story about love and another about family. More often than not movies tend to focus on the main protagonists' love interest while this focuses on everything else affecting it just as much. That was great but I think that's one of it's major drawbacks, it holds on to all these little subplots at the same time and that doesn't allow any of them to develop. So it has a good premise, but it's just lacking a little everywhere, melange of sort. We get the story, but I don't feel as invested as I should be with the characters because they lack depth.

Still have some feelings towards them though. I'm mostly mad at Anna's mum for the advice she gave, understood where she was coming from but could have been worded better, wouldn't have been as mad; sounds like that person who was hurt by or missed out on love so she doesn't want anyone else to enjoy it now, can't stand anyone having a good experience with it because she couldn't. I'm mad at Anna for listening, but she didn't know any better.

And I'm mad Jim for not forgetting about Anna(his friend's advice), but since when has forgetting your first love been easy🤷‍♂️. I'm all for hopeless love and lost causes but Jim's friend is the best bit of dialogue in the movie when he says "why get back into that? Lesson learned... we're young" just move on man. He did essentially gave him the same advice as Anna's mum, difference was Jim was already hurt and trying to get over it while Anna's mum's the one who led her to hurt Jim. I think the only reason I'm mad at Jim is I'd have done exactly what he did, picked up the phone, still in love with her.

There were so many moments in the second half of the movie where I thought the story was done but it kept going but the ending's worth it. For the most part, the movie's just alright, but the end tempts me to rate it slightly higher than it deserves, it's probably a 5/10. I think you need to already like these sorta movies for you to enjoy this one.