Straight Up

The lightning fast dialogue borders on being too scripty, but excellently and sensitively performed and matched with delicious cinematography, editing, and music, it doesn't fail to delight with wit and genuine nuance—delight that is nearly crushed by the ending. I needed acceptance of asexuality as valid, fulfilling, and lovable and didn't get it. After a whole film of depth and complexity the final act seemed simplified and cruel to me. Anyway, still a beautiful and unique little indie.

I loved it and want to see more movies like this, but WTF was with that ending? While I can understand mocking the grand romantic gesture, it still felt way out of place for Sweeney's character. Then to leave it up in the air with an ambiguous trio? Anyway, great relatable main characters, terrible friends, beautifully shot locations but distracting shaky cam at times, hilarious dialogue with movie references, fun parents scene. Fav scene: racist Randall Park.

Clever camerawork and editing, delicious suburban sets (the house-sitting angle was a nice addition), and a snappy script well-acted make for a nice trifecta of indie goodness to highlight the solid core content of a nuanced look at the complications of love and romance and a moving character study of the troubled and talkative Todd. The vague epilogue works with the former but unfortunately completely undermines the arc of the latter, including the cheesy but touching grand final gesture.

The two motormouth leads are quite tiresome, cramming a good two hours’ worth of dialogue and a seemingly endless string of ‘Gilmore Girls’ references into a 90 minute movie, with only an occasional smart quip raising a chuckle. The scenes involving other characters are better, and had me wishing this was more of an ensemble piece. Inherently lacking in stakes - are we really meant to wonder whether Todd and Rory will wind up as a couple?

Too witty by half, but thank God for good dialogue and honestly felt scenes surrounding that dialogue, so it evens out, and makes its OCD even likable. Acted beautifully, shot glowingly like a faux Wes Anderson Instagram account, and structured like a real modern coming-of-age - Gen Y, all self-conscious, doubtful, aspiring bundles of unresolved emotion, enough to make you also want no babies. So it's promising to see that by the epilogue Rory finally sets himself straight.

Surprisingly heartfelt and funny. It's a little too twee

"If Helen Keller can learn to talk, I can learn to eat you out!" It certainly is quirky...I like quirky! It often feels like Sweeney has crammed 3 hours of dialogue into a 1.5-hour movie, but much of it is quite funny. "So, you said you're an actress. Have I seen you in anything?" "Maybe. Have you seen '2 Girls, 1 Cup'?" Good, appealing cast and good visuals. Plot, um, "hole": the notion that irritating queen Ryder is so much more desirable than the other gay boys in this is quite ridiculous.

the snappy gilmore girls dialogue works on a micro level but this frustrates on the macro, smart enough to diagnose millennial performativity but not to escape it. the cloying climax confirms it just wants to be a cute romcom, not a thorny thing about a solipsistic generation, fluid sexuality, asexuality, post-traumatic mental illness, a survivor endorsing rape jokes, etc--fine, but stop pretending. findlay in particular is betrayed multiple times by a plot that asks her to be dumb and fickle.

Too arch and artificial, but as it goes on it arguably becomes part of its charm, with Sweeney and Findlay handling the screwball dialogue like ducks to water (there's a reason Katharine Hepburn gets a name check!) The dichotomy of the fast paced, zingy dialogue against the fairly mundane lives of the protagonists creates a fascinating tension and while it feels like Sweeney is straining for effect at times, this is still a lot of fun; almost the millennial ANNIE HALL!