SWEETHEARTS (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Sweethearts, Max

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 27, 2024

There's something going on between Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga), the main characters of Sweethearts. They've been best friends since they were children, attended the same schools, and are now at the same college together. Oh, each of them also decided to try a long-distance relationship with a romantic partner from high school. It's not the ideal situation for either of them.

That's the initial setup of co-writer/director Jordan Weiss debut film, an anti-romantic comedy of sorts in one obvious way, because the two friends determine their respective romances have run their course, and another that comes as a pleasant surprise. It's also very funny, because Weiss and Dan Brier's screenplay has a solid sense of these characters, a stronger understanding of this friendship, and enough good gags to compensate for a subplot that feels very much out of place here.

The core of the film, though, is the bond between Jamie and Ben, who are introduced in a scrapbook-style set of opening credits, showing them as childhood pals, meeting the people they'll date through some part of high school, and being accepted to the same college. In the process, they've left her boyfriend Simon (Charlie Hall) to go to Harvard, with the lowest GPA ever to be accepted at the university, and his girlfriend Claire (Ava DeMary) to finish out high school, since she was held back one year as a kid. Ben has to explain that whenever someone gives him the obvious look upon hearing his girlfriend is still in high school.

Ben's relationship with Claire isn't going well, because she's calling or texting all the time with some problem or drama, and whenever she does call, he'd better answer, lest the messages pile up on his cellphone notifications and Claire gets angry at him for not being attentive of her. Meanwhile, Simon only seems to contact to Jamie whenever he wants a phone-sex session or a naughty picture from her, and she's gotten so used to it that she can fake her way through the former while getting dressed for class.

What the long-distance relationships mean for both them, though, is that neither of them has much of a life at college. They don't make friends, since they are trying to keep up their romance and spend so much time together anyway. They won't go to parties, because there's not much of a point drinking and dancing with strangers. Basically, Jamie and Ben have taken the notion of being loyal to Simon and Claire to the extreme, and they're miserable as a result.

That reality hits them when they do go to a party one night, in order to test the waters of having fun at college for once. It's a disaster in a way that goes from bad to worse to mortifying, involving Jamie stripping to her underwear because Simon randomly wants a photo, a randy couple that ends up on top of her clothes, a pants-less guy with a full bladder, and a rescue attempt by Ben that only makes him look like a pervert to everyone at the party. The escalation of this sequence feels like a lost art in modern comedy. Every new piece of it builds off the previous one, adding another layer of discomfort and another complication to solve.

The whole plot, really, ends up being like that, too. After the public embarrassment, Claire and Ben decide it's finally time to break up with Simon and Claire. They can't do it over the phone or via text, because that would be mean (Plus, Ben is convinced his girlfriend might retaliate, since their video-call sex sessions have included some things he doesn't want anyone to know). With Thanksgiving break approaching, the two come up with a plan to get their respective partners alone and end things.

It all goes wrong, of course, in ways that neither could predict, although they all make sense, because the characters are established so well before they set off on their scheme. All of it depends on mutual friend Palmer (Caleb Hearon), who's planning to come out as gay at a party at his parents' house, wrangling Simon and Claire and keeping them at the house until Jamie and Ben get there.

Palmer becomes an unexpected third protagonist of sorts here, as he embarks on his own, isolated adventure figuring out his own life and what he could have in it, even in a small town like the one he has tried to escape. The sentiment of the subplot is nice, but it doesn't really belong in this story, which needs a sense of momentum to accompany the constant convolutions and barriers complicating Jamie and Ben's mission. Every time the film stops to check in on Palmer, that comedic rhythm halts, too.

When it finds that rhythm, though, the film is quite funny. That's not only because the gags do expand from one idea to the next (There's one involving the worst possible fake ID in this small town that leads to a game of cat-and-mouse in a crowded bar). It's also because Shipka and Hiraga are so charming as the hapless leads, while having such fine comedic chemistry together.

Things do turn a bit serious in the late stages of the story, as Jamie and Ben have to face what their plan says about them as people, as well as another possible element of the pair's own relationship. That's always something that's going to arise in a film like this one, and while Sweethearts is smart enough to raise the obvious, it's too clever to let the obvious define itself or these characters.

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