So I went into this expecting a cheesy romantic comedy, and it started out that way, before going full Lifetime- tv movie. We start with a generic shot of the boy, T. Despite having zero friends or any real social interaction after middle school, he has no problems whatsoever communicating with others. He calls one such former friend on a lark, revealing an extremely beautiful young woman with a seemingly perfect life. Fast forwarding through the boring parts, we hit the first two major stumbling blocks: 1) He insists she change her clothes off cam, and 2) He calls her "weird and desperate" when she starts to stripteasing him. So as everyone can now easily guess, turns out that despite being seemingly smitten with and flirting effortlessly with this girl for the first third of the movie-- surprise, surprise, T is gay. Not only that but in nowheresville, USA circa 2017 this is quite the tragedy. So we blind ourselves and pretend that even though he doesn't live in the Bible belt, most of his community probably doesn't care, and the entire media culture around homosexuality has been revolutionized, that somehow he's going through highschool 40 years ago. We will also excuse the rude behavior because he was bullied for being different and beat up once by his insecure crush's two jock friends; surely one of the most terrible tales of gay men suffering ever >_>
Fast forward a little more after a failed attempt at forcing T out of the closet, Maddie reveals that she was raped. Not just once or even a handful of times in the past, but that she is the ongoing victim of weekly perhaps even nightly incestual rape. Much like how the "lonely/ antisocial" T had no problems actually interacting with others (aside from low self-esteem), Maddie's life is one of the idyllic teenage girl. She's smart, popular, fit, extremely hard-working, etc. Thus far the extent of her inner demons has been a twinge of perfectionism, one night drinking too much, and that her shitty popular friends ditched her after that night. I know every victim deals with this differently, and that some can put up a very convincing front during or after the traumatic experiences, but am I alone in thinking that level of raw betrayal can't be scar-less? Where's the drug problems, the binge drinking, the eating disorder, the mood disorder, the personality disorder, a period of slipping grades, truancy, hypersexuality, cleptomania, extreme risk-taking, agoraphobia, trust issues, constantly going back to hang with the bad crowd, gambling, something, anything!?!?!?!?!? I just don't understand how I'm supposed to believe these extremely well adjusted people have experienced the levels of suffering they claim, especially her! Most of the time, bits of madness peak out when you start getting close to someone and peel back the layers, but there are no symptoms to be seen at all!
T goes on a road trip to save her after revealing that he was low-key suicidal in the beginning because of course by this movie's logic, and we get an extremely unsatisfying, anti-climactic, rushed ending.
I'm not trying to make light of the subject matter at all, I've had many friends deal with these problems. But as a young man from nowheresville, USA who watched his little sister go through an even more tolerant education, I do know that while bullies and bigots will always exist, gaybashing is quickly disappearing. Indeed, most of that pressure isn't coming from peers anymore, but religion, parents, and especially their own teenage insecurity. But the fact of the matter is that this movie is terrible. It was hastily thrown together as fodder to be propped up by virtue-signalling Twitter mobs as a realistic movie. And again while many suffer in silence, you can tell most of the time if you actually pay attention and get close to someone. I mean not even a stutter or a scar from cutting? You can't just put up a normal teenager and say their life is hell without somehow referencing how they changed it for the better. Who is actually supposed to relate to this? Just makes me angry and wish they were more human, more flawed. I can't see how a gay boy in Atlanta or an actual victim of incest wouldn't hate this movie.
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