Crush (2022)

[peachmangosteen]

 

[Cranberry]

Yes! Bring on the gay teen romcoms where an absolute dumbass of a protagonist stumbles into love. The straights have been hoarding them for long enough!

[Cranberry]

This was cute! It was pretty much exactly what I expected, which was a standard, predictable (in a good way) romcom. The leads had great chemistry (surprising, as they apparently don't get along in real life) and I liked all the characters. I thought Auli’i Cravalho was the standout; even though the movie wasn't from AJ's point of view, you could see her falling for Paige even when she was literally in the background of a scene. I wasn't surprised by any of the reveals, but I didn't need to be. I'm just glad we didn't get another Happiest Season situation where the lead ended up with the wrong girl in the end, haha.

[peachmangosteen]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:15 AM, Cranberry said:

The leads had great chemistry (surprising, as they apparently don't get along in real life) ...

Ooooh, I would like more details on this lol.

[Cranberry]

Here was the initial stuff: Auli’i Cravalho Calls Queer Rom-Com Co-Star Rowan Blanchard Biphobic

And then neither girl talked about it again after that. They did press for the movie mostly separately, as far as I can tell. A quote from this interview was pretty telling:

Quote

This isn’t exactly the same sunny disposition Cravalho had while teasing her film on TikTok. In a since-deleted post, the actress slammed Blanchard’s alleged biphobia. Whether Cravalho meant her Twitter activity (Blanchard once liked a flurry of tweets criticizing the bisexual community) or her on set behavior is unclear, but the actress followed up to say that she cried quite a bit on set.

“I think we had wonderful chemistry on screen,” Cravalho says. “I think that Rowan is very talented.” This is all she can say about her castmate—major “I Don’t Know Her” vibes—before diverting into other plot points.

I was afraid that stuff would ruin the movie for me, but their chemistry was so good that I truly forgot about it pretty soon after I started watching.