***SPOILERS***

Heads up: this is a critique of the movie; I could watch the movie and just enjoy it for what it was, but the point here is a critical analysis, not a review of how entertaining it was. I believe media influences society and big companies like Netflix have a responsibility regarding what content they put out, and that’s kind of the vein I’m running through with this. So please don’t hit me with the “it’s just a movie why are you so butthurt just watch it and move on with your life 🙄” bc that’s really not the point of this.

So I’m watching this movie on Netflix and... There’s a number of things that made me like

So not to get all PC about it but first off, the token diversity thing. Like still better than a lot of movies, but, one black dude, one gay couple, one of this, one of that. Progress is progress, but it seemed to be doing the “we have diversity. Look at all this diversity. We’re so diverse.” + the multicultural winter holiday thing at the church? Good idea, was surprised to see paganism acknowledged, but the characters being like “whoa how crazy is this lol” it was just... trying too hard and handled so poorly, I felt.

It was also super corny but that’s expected. It felt like Netflix was like “what if Love Actually was American and you only knew like 2 characters in it?”

And then the big thing: Tobin and Angie.

At first, I just wanted to rant about this, but then I remembered the diversity thing had me kinda like 😬 too. So: these two are best friends, since they were five, and Tobin has a crush on her. He plans to finally tell her. Okay, great. That’s pretty cute. Characters in a book I’m writing have a simply plot line. It’s a great idea. But then...

JP comes in. Cute jock type, really nice to Angie and Tobin, clearly likes Angie. Again: he’s super nice to Tobin. Tries to build him up and include him at every opportunity. Angie isn’t trying to exclude Tobin either.

And Tobin just gets progressively bitchier and trying to be something he’s not as the movie goes on and is hostile and rude to Angie. Like... homie, you never told her how you feel, and this guy is actually trying. Tobin has a strooong softboi “nice guys finish last girls just like muscles and money :(“ energy.

Then he sulks on a roof in the snow until Angie finally comes to find him and says he’s in love with her and that when he saw her with JP he wanted to kill him?? “Like actually murder him”????

What kind of relationship dynamic does that set! She’s gonna have a cute guy friend one day and he’s gonna flip shit. He’s gonna be that guy that’s like “I was ‘just your friend’ one day, too, and I don’t want you talking to him.”

(Kinda like the one girl who freaked out about her bf having a female friend? Like yeah boy was obviously cheating but she took out her anger by dumping a milkshake on the other girl instead of her hoe ass bf.)

And Netflix decided it would be a good idea to portray “I’m so crazy jealous when you have a good time with another guy- even tho I have no claim to you except being your friend- that I want to murder him” as romantic??? No wonder girls these days keep posting on here about their emotionally abusive relationship; we’ve got movies like this telling us it’s oh-so-romantic and sweet and we should feel sympathy for this poor friendzoned guy’s suffering. Screw that!

I’m friends with a lot of guys. If one of them had a crush on a girl and she started dating someone else and they wanted to kill that guy, I would go off. You don’t automatically get the girl if you fight the guy she’s with; it’s not 1450 anymore.

(Plus when Angie and Tobin were being derogatory to the car and JP was like “I’m a feminist” Th ey both looked at each other like??? Does this movie want to be progressive or not? Fake SJW Netflix is literally the worst bc it like goes out of its way trying to show how great and progressive it is while still doing problematic things. It feels like it’s almost satirizing diversity and feminist efforts intentionally by incorporating jokes like this and tokenism.)

It was just. Ahh. The only redeeming factor of this movie was Stuart and Julie. I loved them. If the movie had just been their love story and the lesbian couple, it probably could have had some potential. But instead it put layers of problematic behavior and production elements that vastly took away from the story.

I would love to hear others thoughts, see if anyone else noticed the same things or had different viewpoints.