The Perfect Date 2019

The Perfect Date (2019)
Dir: Chris Nelson

The Perfect Date is a young adult targetted romantic comedy starring teen "heartthrob" Noah Centineo. This is the story of a high school student who creates an app to offer services as a fake date to make money for an Ivy League college. When he develops feelings for someone, things get complicated. The Perfect Date is based on the 2016 book 'The Stand-In' by Steve Bloom, which personally until researching this film, I had never heard of.

In the past year or so, Netflix has been cranking out these sub-par, ludicrous romantic comedies for their teenage audience, and don't get me wrong - I don't hate them. Noah Centineo is doing his rounds with Netflix, starring in films such as 'To All The Boys I Loved Before' and 'Sierra Burgess Is a Loser' and the teenage/young adult audiences are lapping them up, hence more being pumped out.

I've had The Perfect Date in my Netflix list since the premiere date, out of curiosity. It seemed like one of those films that I'd watch in the middle of the night when I was too tired to commit to a heavy drama that'd require a lot of concentration, but too awake not to watch a film, and that night was tonight. I haven't heard anyone say a single word about this film since it's release month, so there wasn't a huge hype for it like the aforementioned film, 'To All The Boys I Loved Before' which has already produced two sequels which are yet to be released, also based on young adult novels.

The film itself I found to be average, I didn't hate it, it served its purpose, told the story it was supposed to be telling with the cheesy love scenes and all the connotations of a teenage drama packed in like sardines, but I don't think I'll be hankering for a second watch anytime soon.

Overall, for the typical teenage audience who swoon over Noah Centineo, this isn't a bad film and sure I'd recommend it to that audience but I don't think it'll make it into any top rom-com lists or columns anytime soon. But in all honesty, It's worth a watch if cheesy rom-coms are your thing.

So I went into this moving having seen the trailer. I expected reductive dreck. And yet this movie surprised me, both positively and negatively.

The premise was handled well. I generally enjoy this premise and I worried it would feel too samey. It doesn't even though some aspects around the premise feel a bit cheesy. The app idea is great. The app as we see it is kinda cheesy. The idea of a customized Brooks is great. What we actually see is cheesy. He's literally hopping into and out of costume shops. His "douche-bag" date in particular is a big low point. Looking back at it, though it's not the idea that's bad. It was the execution. It felt like he went 5 steps too far because this is a stageplay and you have to exaggerate for the backrow.

I'm bad with faces so I wasn't sure which girl would be his "real" love interest. I assumed it would be the first date and I was pleasantly surprised when I actually liked her. She's the opposite of what I described so far. On paper she's the same as every girl in this character but this actress is actually not terrible in the role.

I think it starts to fall apart when the movie is supposed to fall apart. As with every teenage gigolo movie he starts off spinning plates: Best Friend, Keeping up with First Girl/"Real" Love, His eye candy girl, his fake life (the paid dating) and his real life (College Admission). When the plates are spinning I actually love this movie. I love romcoms. I love teen drama movies. Before the plates start falling the movie is great. It's earnest, it's fun, it doesn't try too hard.

I only had one issue that kept bugging me. He needs to date girls to make money. He makes an app. How does he stop too many girls from getting the app and blowing up his phone. Watching the movie I began to assume this was a flaw in his plan and how his plates would start falling. Normally in this type of movie they use a word of mouth method to keep it secret and manageable. But the app as described here could get passed around too much and lead to him getting 20 requests in one weekend. That would still be an interesting movie where he has to recruit other Stand-Ins.

Honestly at this point I'm at a 4/5 on this movie based on pure simple easy flowing charm. This is max score for a movie like this. It even has cheesy "memory" lines. The lines you're supposed to remember and inspire you.

A Bronx Tale - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8p1iG-6d-w

It's heartwarming enough. But then.... BUT THEN... so the first plate to fall is the best friend. First off this character is super underdeveloped. Hmm actually that's not right. He's a pretty full character. The problem is their friendship is underdeveloped. The goal of the screenplay is that the friendship breaks and things happen. The problem is you don't see a broken friendship. You see a broken friend night (barely) and then suddenly the friendship is over and jumps into dying mode. It's jarring. Almost as jarring as when the first girl plate falls. It happens because our hero does something so out of character for absolutely no reason. He uses super personal information as content for their fake break-up. But why? He started the break-up fine. Then he suddenly spirals into her literal deeply contained feelings just for this fake show they're putting on. And then again BAM the third plate falls the hot girl plate. He gets caught via an old customer who outs him like paying for dates is normal and she doesn't understand social tact. The hot girl dumps him for lying? So weird.

And long story short it ends. That's all there really is to say. There's a really cool decision but then nothing really happens with it.