I have never been a fan of hearts and candy decorations littering the walls during February. With Valentine’s Day approaching I knew there was something I had to do to keep my mind busy. In realizing this, I dug through my streaming services to find what I think are the most cringy and unbearable romantic films. After rewatching these movies, I jotted down my opinion on the various places these movies struggled to keep me intrigued. My observations will make you think twice the next time these titles are mentioned. There will be movie spoilers!
I knew I had to begin with a movie everyone has heard of once before. This chaotic film follows a star-studded cast on the 14th of February. With a 4 out of 10 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Valentine’s Day is all over the place for a few reasons. All of the characters’ stories cross paths through some bizarre connection. To me, this chaos seemed like an excuse to have a surplus of popular, pretty faces on the movie posters. That fact alone is one of the only enjoyable things about the film. Taylor Swift. Ashton Kutcher. George Lopez. Julia Roberts. Jamie Foxx. Only to name a few. Frankly, the one beautiful thing about Valentine’s Day was watching Estelle Paddington (Shirley MacLaine), and her husband Edgar (Hector Elizondo) come together in their challenging, yet lengthy marriage. Even better, their grandson Edison (Bryce Robinson) finally learned what love is about. The portrayals of love within the film felt very forced and awkward. The cliches are nearly catastrophic to me. This could have been the production team’s intention, but it drew me away entirely.
Next in line, we have another cliche that depicts the classical beautiful blonde chasing the curly-haired boy. This 2014 film is a modern remake of Frank Ziffirelli’s 1981 version of Endless Love. I have to add that both these films were meant to be an interpretation of Scott Spencer’s original 1979 novel. Being the media worm that I am, you can bet that I read the novel and watched both film adaptations. The first film lacked some of the raw emotion you receive from Spencer’s sweet words. This film version, David (Alex Pettyfer) and Jane (Gabriella Wilde), made me upset that books get turned into films at all. To me, the audience score of 58% on Rotten Tomatoes is generous. Even though it is known as a romantic film, Endless Love is a film of angry love. In my opinion, the father Hugh, played by Bruce Greenwood, had some scenes that drove me up the wall. I understand that directors wanted to depict how deeply Hugh resented David, but Greenwood’s acting made me cringe. The drama between Hugh and David somehow became the main point of the movie, and it made me feel like the production team clearly missed the mark on telling a love story. Instead, they concocted a story of heartache and revenge.
Now, for my least favorite of them all. Joey King has definitely grown to be one of my favorite actresses, but her character Elle in The Kissing Booth falls short. In my opinion, this film is another that simply ignored the elements of a love story. They failed to relay a final sentimental message. I thought this movie focused a little too much on what being boy-crazy can do to you. In doing so, the creators overly sexualized Elle. There were plenty of camera shots spending a little too much time on King’s short skirts on set. In other areas, there was a clear obsession with making everyone take their shirts off. Yes, I am sure when we watched this movie in 2018 we all were obsessed with Noah (Jacob Elordi) and his recklessness. We were set on following Elle’s footsteps to find our own sexy and mysterious bad boy. Now that I’ve rewatched it, it was never about the boy. It was about how you got the boy. Those ‘hows’ are surely questionable after re-examining their context. In my eyes, the film’s creative team zoned in on the wrong details of being a teenager and managed to squeeze in as many misogynistic behaviors as possible.
AFTER (2019)
One of the main reasons I have such a hard time with this movie is that I know it is based on Anna Todd’s novel series After. This series is one that I could read over and over again, but we are talking about movies here. For further context, Anna Todd’s novels and films are based on a lengthy fanfiction about highly-praised singer Harry Styles. As a loyal Directioner for life, I will admit that I read every bit of it. Paramount Pictures bought the screen rights in 2014, and with that came the film trilogy. To my dismay, the movie failed me tremendously. I will say this opinion is due to how I wish Harry Styles was in this movie and not Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). All jokes aside, I felt the film was a cheaper and less entertaining version of 50 Shades of Grey. I was not a fan of how the relationship was so closely depicted like Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan’s characters. The storyline is relatively sex-heavy, but I think that production teams captured more of the toxicity in the relationship. The misogyny mixed with hypersexual scenes took away the idea of love and empathy completely. The film concentrated on the destructive parts of love rather than exemplifying how partners can grow from those experiences.