Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Sweethearts’ Review: Kiernan Shipka Leads a Reductive, Raunchy Rom-Com That Examines Love and Life’s Complexities
Decades after “When Harry Met Sally” asked audiences if adult men and women can be friends, yet another romantic comedy poses the same question of a contemporary collegiate crowd. However, in director Jordan Weiss’ “Sweethearts,” which revolves around two besties breaking up with their hometown romances over a holiday weekend, the time-honored query waits until the last minutes to develop, while a separate pair of screwball-comedy plotlines haven’t properly concluded. Though the film contains a talented ensemble and compelling sentiments about self-acceptance and platonic friendship, it plays like two half-baked screenplays mashed together, bound by wafer-thin connections.
Ben (Nico Hiraga) and Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) have been best friends since childhood and are determined to stick together through their adulthood, starting with attending the same college in the same dorm at Densen University. Outside of their tightknit bond, however, is a world full of complications, from Ben’s roommate Tyler (Zach Zucker), who treats him like a doormat, to Jamie’s roommate Kelly (Olivia Nikkanen), whose multiple attempts to pull her out of her shell have failed. Even their romantic relationships are causing them problems. Ben’s horny, long-distance girlfriend Claire (Ava DeMary), who’s still in high school back home, monopolizes his time and takes him for granted. Claire’s dopey jock boyfriend Simon (Charlie Hall) generally annoys her with his requests for sexts and movie nights. All this has led the pair to become the class outcasts — and they’ve had it.
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In order to better fit in and start anew, Ben and Claire come up with a scheme to dump Claire and Simon when they travel home to Ohio for Thanksgiving. They plan to use their pal Palmer’s (Caleb Hearon) house, as he’s back from living abroad in Paris and hosting a small coming-out party. Yet from the first moment on the day of the breakup, Ben and Claire encounter a series of problems, everything from a bus ride with an obnoxious eavesdropping passenger (Stavros Halkias) to reuniting with an overzealous crush (Kate Pittard). Their significant others also go missing before they can cut them loose. Meanwhile, Palmer’s journey also takes a few detours, like learning their small town has a queer bowling league attended by his former high school coach, Coach Reese (Tramell Tillman).
Weiss, along with co-writer Dan Brier, employs all the formulaic “one crazy night” teen comedy shenanigans with minor tweaks that add a refreshed shellac on stale goods. Claire and Simon get wasted at a boring soiree, not a raging, rowdy house party, although there is one of those featured later in the climax. A traumatic, toxic friend (Sophie Zucker) from Jamie’s past emerges, not to bully her, but to forgive and befriend her again. Ben and Jaime are forced to steal a dorky, cherry red tandem bicycle, not a fancy automobile. And, in one of the picture’s smartest strokes of ingenuity, Ben gets caught using the ID of a dead guy by a burly bouncer (Darius ‘Nastyelgic’ Jackson) who happened to be a pallbearer at the funeral for its original owner.
Despite the filmmakers’ attempts at raunchy humor, there’s not much that’s particularly funny, groundbreaking or memorable. They over-orchestrate these events, which blessedly surface early in the first and are then abandoned going forward (with the exception of an awkward sex tape finally revealed right before the end credits). Ben and Jamie’s botched frat party sequence is ham-handed — the seeds of the potential disasters are planted, but we know how they’ll escalate and can predict their ultimate outcomes. The construction of jokes is cheap and simplistic, ranging from a bitter partygoer who tosses her drink on Ben to the sloshed tertiary character who goes full frontal in service of a gross-out gag.
While Palmer has a fleshed-out arc independent of the platonic pals, his story track fails to align much with theirs. His inclusion feels either vestigial or an afterthought when he should’ve been either prioritized or excised completely. He’s touted as their third best friend in the opening credits, but isn’t treated as such in the film’s execution. He’s separated from the pair for most of his screen time, on a quest to discover the queer community hiding under his nose — though it’s a stretch that he never noticed given how much it’s emphasized they live in a tiny town. He’s also made to apologize to Ben and Jamie at the end, when they’re the ones who should apologize for ignoring him for practically their whole visit.
Ben and Jamie have an effervescent, rhythmic repartee that bubbles to the surface in their frank discussions about sex, love, hopes and anxieties. The narrative works best when centered on their conflicts and conundrums. Shipka and Hiraga are a charming match in the way they verbally volley in relaxed, casual conversations. Shipka finds a few vulnerable grace notes to play that augment her empathetic drive. Hiraga, who’s been a highlight in “Rosaline” and “Booksmart,” is a great leading man, elevating weaker aspects of the material and making his hero moment feel earned.
DeMary and Hall, as the spurned soon-to-be exes, give their characters depth and dimension. Christine Taylor, who plays Ben’s caring mother, and Joel Kim Booster, who plays Coach Riggs’ boyfriend and Palmer’s sage confidante, add much-needed heart to the proceedings. It’s a shame, however, that this solid cast is relegated to such forgettable fodder.
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