#romcom review

spoiler warning from this point on

Charlie & Beau's story With her friends Izzy and Kam, Charlie O'Malley runs an all-women autoshop. She's not been in a relationship for as long as she can remember and has no interest in dating, except for the stranger that she met on the internet. They keep their identities entirely secret from each other and talk only about cars, especially the cars they're fixing. A new guy, Beau, comes into town and he and Charlie immediately have chemistry, without either of them knowing they already have online chemistry as well. Her friends egg her on to get his number, but despite Charlie seeming interested in the guy, she doesn't want to rush into it. When they run into Beau at a bar, Charlie dodges a kiss from him by a hair and runs off with her friends.

Meanwhile, Beau is opening up the new autoshop he has been sent to manage, which has opened up right across the street from Charlie's with the goal to take all her business and get her shop to close. He is known as The Closer where he works, notorious for managing the corporation's shops so well that every local shop goes out of business. Charlie and her friends show up at the shop to try and get some of their customers back, but Charlie finds out Beau is actually the manager and that he's been actively trying to keep this fact from her. Naturally, Charlie is pissed and accuses him of being a spy.

With Beau no longer being a romantic prospect for Charlie, she agrees to meet the online stranger to celebrate getting her dad's old car working. When Beau arrives and sees his online friend is Charlie herself, he decides to go over there and not tell her. Instead, he chastises her, and despite Charlie asking him to leave many times, he keeps at it instead of just telling her they're actually there to meet each other. Charlie says some unkind things to Beau, which leads him to leave and Charlie to think she got stood up by her online friend.

After this, Charlie doesn't know what to do anymore. Her business is losing money, she's not enjoying it anymore, and when she finally gave romance a chance, it blew up in her face. Twice. She confides in her friends and decides to close the autoshop, because she has other dreams and doesn't want to keep fighting for it when she's not happy in it any longer. As she pursues her dream of starting a specialised kind of autoshop, Charlie bumps into Beau multiple times over. She indulges him, but it's clear that she doesn't like him. He invites her to an old car exposition and sends her a ticket, asking her to come.

In between, Beau has a deal with his boss that once he gets his location running well, they can start working on an idea of Beau's to turn old cars into electric vehicles, are they're very popular right now. When his boss pushes the project backwards further and wants Beau to manage another location, Beau quits on the spot.

Charlie shows up to the car festival and all of the sudden it's like all their history never happened. As if there was never any bad blood and she's into Beau. They have an uncharacteristically great time together and have a little car race on their way home. Beau's car breaks down and Charlie offers him a ride home. He invites her inside for dinner, where they share a passionate kiss. During their make out session, Charlie seems to get overwhelmed and asks to go to the bathroom. Beau points her in the general direction and Charlie ends up accidentally opening the garage door, where she sees the car the online stranger sent her pictures of. She leaves immediately, but Beau runs after her. They argue in the driveway, with Charlie distraught and Beau badly trying to explain why he lied, but he has nothing much of worth to say and fumbles... horribly. Unable to trust him again, Charlie leaves.

A month later, Charlie is talking to her friends, who convince her to realise her feelings for Beau and she decides she misses the connection they had and that she does want to try to be something with him. She finds him at a roadside diner and they make up. A year later, Charlie has realised her dream and Beau is working with her in her new autoshop.

My thoughts Beau is such an asshole in this movie and he absolutely does not deserve to have Charlie. She is such a sweetheart and it's insane to me that she went back to him after he actively lied to her twice. He feigns remorse and even once says he had "no idea" what his job did to local businesses like hers, but his nickname is literally The Closer, the guy who has closed the most shops with his success... Either he is lying or just really stupid. The scene in which he finds out Charlie is the online stranger and decides to chastise her instead of telling her the truth also rubs me the wrong way. Girls, just because you have chemistry with a guy, it doesn't mean that you should go back to him! Any sane woman never would have after the way Beau treated Charlie.

Despite the horrible romance story, I loved everything else about this movie. Madelaine Petsch is great in the role of Charlie and plays the part very well. She has amazing chemistry with everyone she comes across and her friendship with Izzy and Kam is very well-written and feels real. That is exactly the kind of stupid banter I have with my friends. No character feels over the top or too much like a caricature, they genuinely feel real and like they could actually be your friend. I guess the way Beau is an asshole of a dude is also realistic... Where can a girl find a truly genuinely kind guy in this economy???

Would I recommend this movie? As a romance? Absolutely not. It's certainly a fun watch, and rooting for Charlie and her friends is very easy to do, but it gets tough when Beau starts acting like... that. As a comedy, though? Yes. I would watch a movie of Charlie, Izzy and Kam going on an adventure or just doing anything and having fun together.

Tier list Dating a man like this would be my worst nightmare, so this is 100% going into "My Worst Nightmare". Any woman deserves so much better than a guy who actively lies and deceives you for his own gain and can barely communicate his emotions clearly.

Their story Ana and João meet for the first time when Ana gets off the bus in her grandfather's hometown and she sees João's little sister playing a game on her phone. Ana obviously has had her phone taken away, so she asks the girl to use her phone. When she refuses, Ana decides to "borrow it anyway" and fights her for the phone. João and his other sister Rebeca intervene, and, upon learning she's the granddaughter of Germano, offers her a ride to his house.

When Ana arrives at her grandfather's, she discovers the house does not have toilet paper, only bidets. Ana has no clue how to use these, so she walks to back to the town center to buy some toilet paper. She gets there long after stores have closed, but the small grocery store's door is unlocked, so she goes in and takes some toilet paper. While writing a note that she'll come back later to pay for it, she knocks some stuff over and the owners come rushing in in their pyjamas. It's João, his sisters and his mother. He tells their mother they know her and that he'll deal with it. Ana explains the situation, and João lets her take the toilet paper and, again, offers her a ride home.

During Ana's stay, she crosses paths with João multiple times. He comes by to help her grandfather with his car, they go to his store, and eventually they go for a picnic together. Their affection for each other is very clear, mainly because João stares at her with the largest puppy dog eyes, like it's his first time ever being in love and Ana is a goddess come to life (I wish a man would look at me like that).

The annual festival is back in town and Ana and João attend together. They share their first kiss here, but while they're having a good time later on, she's recognized by a fan, who tells her that her ex boyfriend Gil, who broke up with her right before she got in the car crash that landed her in the hospital, is dating someone new. A girl who has essentially stolen the place Ana was supposed to have as the face of the fashion brand they were signed to. Ana flips out, and when she calms down she stumbles upon an advertisement with a familiar man on it. It's the same man her parents hired to pretend to be someone from the courts who came to take her phone away. When João reveals he knew about it as well and kept it from her, she runs away, back towards the city and her old life.

Before, in her grandfather's house, Ana discovered her late grandmother was a fashion designer, which Ana has a degree in. She decided to rework her grandmother's clothing into her own designs, but when her former employers from the fashion brand came to visit her, they stole all her designs. Months after Ana has returned home, her family discovers this and notifies Ana. Together, they go to the show of the stolen collection and expose Ana's former employers for the thieves they are. Here, Ana decides not to be angry anymore and embrace the people she loves. She finally gets together with João, who is now in culinary school because Ana had told him to go for it. He was reluctant, since he felt his family needed him at home, but with Ana's encouragement he followed his dreams after all.

And they lived happily ever after, probably. Ana has a boyfriend who isn't superficial, her family has reunited with her grandfather and she's gotten her thieves of a former employers arrested.

My thoughts This was a very cute movie to watch, but I was not feeling this resolution to the "third act breakup" at all. Ana is rightfully very upset that everyone she's come to care about has been lying to her. She feels incredibly stupid, as if everyone has been laughing at her, which is understandable. Running back to the city and her old life felt like a drastic move, especially after all she's learned, but I also thought that by the time she kissed João at the festival she wouldn't have cared whether or not her ex boyfriend was kissing someone else, but she was incredibly upset about it, and I'm surprised João was not at all upset at the fact that she clearly was not over this guy. You could say her reaction was more about that having been her spot, her dream. But the movie didn't frame it that way, in my opinion.

When Ana returns to band together and expose her former employers, it's like suddenly everything is good again. There is no meaningful conversation, no real resolution, she just kind of forgives them. I feel like this movie could have given so much more, but that's not really what Netflix makes anymore, is it? The quality has gone down hard on the romances, comedies and dramas they make, and it's such a shame, because you just know they can do better.

The villains in this, Ana's former employers, are also very cartoon-ish. I guess everyone in this movie is, but especially with antagonists it gets a little jarring for me. But I guess that is a personal preference.

Would I recommend? In the end, I'd say that if you're in for a fun, feel-good movie, then yes, definitely watch this. It's cute, it's entertaining, and João is incredibly dreamy. But is this a "you must watch this coming of age film, it's so good"? No, absolutely not.

Tier list position Listen, this movie definitely had me giggling about João's puppy dog face, but I'm still going to put it in "One-Time Watch". I'm leaning towards "Deniable Chemistry", because there wasn't much of it, but then that also wasn't really the point?