I had a strange reaction to this movie, and an uncomfortable amount of it was because I'm getting set in my ways. I grew up on a very specific brand of high school movie. It was comfortably PG-13. It never felt like a real high school experience. It could only hint so much about the real high school experience. You know, your Bring It Ons, 10 Things I Hate About Yous, or Get Over Its. I love these movies in large part because I knew them in my formative years. However, if you'd ever ask me generally, I'd say I wish more high school movies sounded like high school and spoke more frankly about sex in particular.
That's what Crush is and does. By plot, character, and quality of writing, it's a very traditional high school comedy. There's a love triangle and a lot of people talking in punch lines. It also has much franker dialog. Lots of "fucks" and vibrator talk. I appreciated that, but weirdly, I balked at it a bit too. It doesn't play by the rules of my high school comedies the way that even a Love, Simon does. So, as much as I actually did enjoy the movie, some annoying part of my brain kept trying to reject it. That's a me problem though.
Overall, I really enjoyed Crush. It's exactly the movie it wants to be. I mainly showed up for the cast, which is a sort of young performer all-star team. It stars Rowan Blanchard (Girl Meets World). The two love interests are played by Auli'i Cravalho (All Together Now, the voice of Moana) and Isabella Ferreira (Love, Victor). The best friends are played by Tyler Alvarez (American Vandal, which, you’re right, I should go rewatch that right now) and Teala Dunn (I don’t know what she’s from specifically, but she has a lot of Disney/Nickelodeon-type credits). For many of them, this feels like a last hurrah before they can’t pass as high schoolers anymore. Ferreira is the only one even still in her teens. Dunn and Alvarez are hitting the back half of their 20s. So, it’s nice to see at least one more high school performance out of them before it either gets too hard to buy them in the roles or they start going for other types of roles.
Look. There isn’t much to say. It’s a Gen Z high school love story with a strong young cast and a couple older ringers (Megan Mullaly, Aasif Mandvi). The plot is charmingly predictable. The dialogue isn’t particularly clever but it tries to be. I appreciated the attempt. It’s certainly a better movie than, say, He’s All That, although it doesn’t match some of the films from a half-generation before like The Edge of Seventeen or Love, Simon.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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