Chemical Hearts (2020)
Directed by Richard Tanne
When a hopelessly romantic high school senior falls for a mysterious new classmate, it sets them both on an unexpected journey that teaches them about love, loss, and most importantly themselves.
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7 films that influenced Chemical Hearts
What critics say influenced Chemical Hearts
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Let’s see, we’ve got Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and The Fault in Our Stars , except nobody is dying here, save for very slowly and eventually, in an existential-dread kind of way.
Whether it’s “The Fault in Our Stars,” or “Five Feet Apart,” crippled teenage romance always sells.
But where the likes of “Paper Towns” and “The Fault in Our Stars” were inflected with a kind of manic pixie dream magic that inspired their characters to save each other or die trying, Richard Tanne’s adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s YA hit “Our Chemical Hearts” offers a relatively inert take on the same milieu.
Much like previous doomed teen romances The Fault in Our Stars and All The Bright Places , Chemical Hearts is packed full of melodrama.
Movies like “Sixteen Candles” (1984), “Secret Admirer” (1985), and “Some Kind of Wonderful” (1987) peppered big screens during the 1980s, as the clumsy male leads attempt – (sorry, *spoiler alert*) in vain – to date future NFL cheerleaders.
It’s also not nearly as good as Lady Bird or The Edge of Seventeen , possibly because those two movies aren’t beholden to YA novels.
Chemical Hearts slots pretty conventionally into the pantheon of slightly moody teen romances, lacking the acerbic spark of something like The Edge of Seventeen or even the luminously amiable cheese of Disney+’s recent Stargirl.
Now don’t get me wrong, teen coming-of-age films are my all time guilty pleasures; Hailee Steinfeld’s The Edge of Seventeen and Booksmart are definitely up there for peak genre outings, progressing the female voice in teen films.
Henry is practically a cardboard cutout of Logan Lerman’s character in The Perks of Being a Wallflower , and sometimes Grace’s dialogue and mannerisms are so aggressively “edgy” that she feels like a remnant of the Tumblr “I’m not like other girls” phase as opposed to an actual fleshed-out human being.
It’s similar in tone to the sturdy indie The Spectacular Now or something like The Perks of Being a Wallflower .
With Green came more authors delving deeper into the psychological upheaval felt by high schoolers, resulting in streaming and cinematic adaptations of 13 Reasons Why and The Perks of Being A Wallflower.
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Yes, “Chemical Hearts” is a prime (and sometimes almost self-parodic) example of a cinematic alchemy that will be very familiar to a generation raised on John Green novels instead of “She’s All That.”
It’s similar in tone to the sturdy indie The Spectacular Now or something like The Perks of Being a Wallflower .
It’s not saying much to say that “Chemical Hearts” easily rises above more sickness-based treacle like “Midnight Sun” and doesn’t come close to the frayed discoveries of “The Spectacular Now.”
The movie isn’t of the caliber of “The Spectacular Now,” “Lady Bird” or other superior teen-movie fare.
It’s not as effective as the effervescently witty 500 Days of Summer, but there are times when it strives for a similar sensibility.