It was not my plan to fall in love with this film as much as I did, but glad that I did....When I first saw it, I was bucking up for another throwaway streaming love story like “Prey.” Rather, I was actually invested, actually smiling, wherewith a little bit moved at the end. I'm no one to talk lightly about a film based on a Wattpad novel as this.
The arrangement seems familiar when written out on paper, and it is: Dallas is a strong dancer who wants to go to the same top-notch dance school that her deceased mother once studied at, and she's a dream that she owes to a person who's around no more to witness her upholding it. Her brother gets a new job as the new football coach at another high school, and she transfers with him, and right away she's attracted to Drayton the handsome and go-getting quarterback of that school, who under all of his bravado has a lot of his own problems. It's the classic "headstrong artist meets golden-boy athlete" pairing and if you've seen just half a dozen films in this genre, you know by now the general contours of the direction it will take.
But what sets this one apart, and what really took my breath away is the amount of heart that's sewn into it. They are both bearing the weight of grief.. hers over the death of her mother, his over the pressure of family and a life that's more complicated than the easy smile on his face would suggest and the movie doesn't only use those feelings of loss to build sympathy for the characters; it allows them feelings of loss to become a shaping force in how these two people relate. The relationship isn't based solely on banter and tension, it's based on a mutual something that they know and will never talk about, and that's what brings them together.
The fact that this is a so mature movie for a genre like this is something that kept me hooked even after I thought I was ready to pull the plug.
So much of this works because of the chemistry between Siena Agudong and Noah Beck, and I mean it's hard to fake that chemistry and harder to find in projects like this. There are too many of these teen romance retellings with people who are very capable of looking the part but aren't really very good at selling the emotional moments and beats and then waiting for the two pretty leads to get their cue to kiss. Not so here. Towards the end of the film, around the time the two have fallen out, Drayton shows up at Dallas's door, it's not the most polished moment, no one is delivering a line-by-line speech that is cut and dried.. that's the beauty of it. It was like an actual scene with two actors and not a beat for the script to hit and it was the scene that pulled me in to this movie.
Drayton's overbearing, image-obsessed father, played by James Van Der Beek, is a very unexpected and terrific addition to the cast. He might easily have been a one-note character, the oppressive sport daddy whose sole purpose is to stir up trouble, but here he does bring some depth and verisimilitude to the role, suggesting the same kind of unfulfilled dreams and insecurities lurking behind his controlling facade. It's the kind of acting that makes some scenes here more than filler between the love scenes in a less powerful rendition of this film.
The soundtrack deserves its very own paragraph in all honesty. It's packed with killer, moodily selected pop and indie songs that do more than just fill the silence in the background (a problem too many budget films share). I made several stops to check out the song that was playing during the film, something I wouldn't expect to do while watching an original Tubi movie.
I was in there thinking, I'm going to be bored. And I am still, I will say, charmed, invested, and a little emotional at the end.
My Honest Take? It's sweet, sincere and too emotional for the situation. An authentic feel-good watch with a worthy finish.
Rating: 80/100
