There’s something to be said for an opening title sequence that eliminates the need for in-dialogue exposition. Over a collage of images and items, Sweethearts rapidly lays out its setup. Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga) are longtime best friends attending their first semester of college at the same school. They both decided to remain with their respective significant others, effectively killing their on-campus social life. Their other best friend is Palmer (Caleb Hearon) who skipped college to live and work in Paris for a year.
The setup dealt with before a word is spoken, Sweethearts is free to dive into the specifics of the case immediately. Jamie’s beau, Simon (Charlie Hall), is a football hero who parlayed high school glory into admission to Harvard despite having the lowest entrance GPA in Crimson’s history. He and Jamie mostly communicate through sexting and phone sex, neither of which genuinely excites Jamie. Ben and his girlfriend Claire (Ava DeMary), on the other hand, seem to have the sex thing down pat. It’s everything that’s suffocating Ben. Together, the best friends decide to dump Claire and Simon when they’ll all be together again during Thanksgiving break. Only then can the duo be happy and fully experience college life. They enlist Palmer to help them make it happen. He’s game despite it complicating his own return-to-town plan: revealing to his former classmates that he’s gay.
From the moment the best friends make the decision following a disastrous attempt at attending a stereotypical college party, nothing goes right. Each bump in the road reveals that perhaps it isn’t just their romances in need of a reevaluation.
While the film, directed by Jordan Weiss from a script she co-wrote with Dan Brier, leaps off the blocks and rarely slows down, it never nails that “one crazy night” feel. There’s plenty of incident, but it doesn’t find that jittery, “so painful it’s hysterical” energy. As a result, viewers can often feel like they’re forgetting Sweethearts as it unfolds. There’s a thin line between lighthearted and disposable. Too often, the movie crosses it. It is frequently fun, often funny, but little of it sticks.
Another kind of movie Sweethearts whiffs on is a teen/college sex comedy. Early on, it feels like it may want to be what American Pie was to the born in the 80s set or Sex Drive, less successfully, was to the 90s babies. It is a genre this critic confesses to have a particular affection for while acknowledging its limitations and problematic aspects. There’s Jamie’s loud “faked” phone sex in the first five minutes. (Sidenote: I’m not sure anyone has been so delightfully blasé screaming about how horny she is while getting ready for class as Shipka is here.) The party scene has simulated sex, grinding, an exposed penis, and a bodily fluids gag that feels especially Pie-esque. But after 20 minutes that all goes away, leaving a far tamer film in its wake.
What it does well, on the other hand, is capture the sense of returning to a place that’s not really home any longer. For Jamie and Ben, everything and everyone is familiar, but it doesn’t fit like it used to. Sometimes, that’s good as it allows old grudges to be released. Other times, decidedly less so as people feel free to cross lines they never would’ve back in high school. That mix of longing for what was while feeling a bit dragged down on it feels honest and recognizable.
It also gives the film its best subplot. The “one gay friend” is an archetype of teen/young adult films, one as similarly prone to marginalization as the “one friend of color” trope. Early in the film, Palmer looks likely to slot into that role, with the opening credits labeling him the “other best friend.” However, when Ben and Jamie reach their Ohio hometown, Palmer gets considerably more of the narrative. Even better, his storyline is the most satisfying as he discovers an unexpected community (with the likes of Joel Kim Booster’s fireman) in the hometown he’d spent years convincing himself he wanted to escape. Hearon gives Palmer a nice mix of certainty and confusion. He has a good sense of who he is but is still unsure what he wants. He keeps the character from being either purely the wise outsider or the flamboyant comic relief.
His development, while absolutely worth it, does undercut Ben and Jamie’s storylines. As a result, they’re both pretty thin for lead characters. Once again, Sweethearts often feels so lighthearted it might blow away. Thankfully, Shipka and Hiraga have charisma and chemistry to spare. There’s much the audience can let slide because the two’s energy connects many dots that less talented performers would be stranded between by the script.
On the other hand, the screenplay also delivers a reversal in the final third that proves its smartest choice. Without spoilers, I will say it is nice to finally watch a film that realizes all kinds of connections between people are valid and worth cultivating and holding on to.
Despite being a fairly forgettable affair—or perhaps precisely because it is—Sweethearts feels like a perfect Holiday Break film for when you grow tired of the tinsel and holly. The movie has a nice energy, winning performers, and gives a usually dismissed character type a satisfying arc that kind of pushes the straight leads into the margins. It lives up to the first part of its name, giving viewers a sugary treat. Best of all, it doesn’t require much investment and won’t leave them feeling bogged down or bloated. Sometimes, when the nights are long and the holidays are chaotic, that sort of respite is a delight.
Sweethearts is currently fumbling toward adulthood on MAX.