I like the message that they're trying to go for. I like the way they designed Ellie and Paul and Aster's arcs. And I like the end game that nobody ended up with a romantic partner, but each learned about love, found bonding, and broke out of their molds to become the person they're meant to be. But I feel like a couple of things were way too comical and unrealistic, and the dialogue was just too cringy and pretentious.
For starters, I couldn't see this film as a comedy. It's too slow paced and philosophical. But as a serious movie, all its characters outside the leads were complete caricatures. Aster didn't say a single word to Trig the entire film. The girls hanging around Aster & Trig even wore the same clothes. I mean come on... This creates problems. Once Aster caught Paul kissing Ellie and Paul realized Ellie was gay, there weren't any scenes to be written. The 3 leads weren't talking to each other, and other than that there weren't any real characters, so Paul's coming to accept Ellie's sexuality seemed to have happened over night.
Aster's character was quite poorly written. I finally understood Aster the 2nd time I watched the film, how she's repressed by her religious family, and how her friends are too superficial for her. So it made more sense that she cheated on Trig and stuff, but she didn't even express any internal struggle that what she was doing was wrong. She said she kinda knew the truth and did have feelings for Ellie too. Ok that's quite a big deal, so where's the foreshadowing for that? Alice Wu insists that Aster felt something that she wasn't ready to admit at the hot spring, but the film didn't show us any hints. We didn't get to see Aster contacting Ellie after the hot spring, or Aster being confused about her feelings for Paul and Ellie, or any tension at the hot spring. So it just felt unearned when she kissed Ellie in the end.
Most of the dialogue were really poorly written. Paul's date was so pathetic it couldn't even come off as funny. Ellie's conversations with Aster were way too pretentious. They tried to make them sound deep. They just sounded boring. And the church scene. Ugh. Who wrote that?
Anyway in general the movie's pretty nice. It's a good coming of age story. But it could've been better.
For starters, I couldn't see this film as a comedy. It's too slow paced and philosophical. But as a serious movie, all its characters outside the leads were complete caricatures. Aster didn't say a single word to Trig the entire film. The girls hanging around Aster & Trig even wore the same clothes. I mean come on... This creates problems. Once Aster caught Paul kissing Ellie and Paul realized Ellie was gay, there weren't any scenes to be written. The 3 leads weren't talking to each other, and other than that there weren't any real characters, so Paul's coming to accept Ellie's sexuality seemed to have happened over night.
Aster's character was quite poorly written. I finally understood Aster the 2nd time I watched the film, how she's repressed by her religious family, and how her friends are too superficial for her. So it made more sense that she cheated on Trig and stuff, but she didn't even express any internal struggle that what she was doing was wrong. She said she kinda knew the truth and did have feelings for Ellie too. Ok that's quite a big deal, so where's the foreshadowing for that? Alice Wu insists that Aster felt something that she wasn't ready to admit at the hot spring, but the film didn't show us any hints. We didn't get to see Aster contacting Ellie after the hot spring, or Aster being confused about her feelings for Paul and Ellie, or any tension at the hot spring. So it just felt unearned when she kissed Ellie in the end.
Most of the dialogue were really poorly written. Paul's date was so pathetic it couldn't even come off as funny. Ellie's conversations with Aster were way too pretentious. They tried to make them sound deep. They just sounded boring. And the church scene. Ugh. Who wrote that?
Anyway in general the movie's pretty nice. It's a good coming of age story. But it could've been better.