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Quietly, off in the corner, the rise of streaming has created a rom-com renaissance. In films like Greatest Hits (2024) and Fingernails (2023), lower budgets and lower stakes have allowed creators to upset, subvert, and sidestep the tropes in a genre notorious for formulaic plot beats and even more formulaic endings.
At first, Jordan Weiss’s Sweethearts looks like a film ready to hit those beats and that ending with as little imagination as possible. Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga) are best friends in their first year of college, both in long-distance relationships with others. They both simultaneously realize that they’re no longer in love with their significant others and decide to break up with them at Thanksgiving.
Longtime rom-com fans know what’s coming next. Jamie and Ben obviously haven’t realized that they’re in love yet, and by the end of the film, they’ll be in each other’s arms. Their gay friend Palmer (Caleb Hearon), who’s living in France but back in town for Thanksgiving, will provide one-liners and encouragement from the sidelines. The film could write itself.
And yet, rather delightfully, it does not. In the first place, rather than the queer character being the inevitable second fiddle, Palmer’s storyline waltzes right out of the subplot and just about takes over the film, as he discovers that his rural Ohio town does in fact have a vibrant gay community, complete with mentors, friends, and potential romance.
As for Jamie and Ben—well, I don’t want to spoil the ending, but their romance arc is resolved in a way that’s lovely, genuine, and genuinely surprising. Old-school rom-coms can feel mechanical in their remorseless drive to grind out their happily ever afters in spite of character or logic. Sweethearts, in contrast, is a gentle little film that has real heart. R, 98 min.
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