The Kissing Booth

The Kissing Booth is a shallow, predictable, lifeless movie about a girl, her best friend, and her best friend's brother. It tells the laziest possible story it could given the circumstances, does things exactly how you'll expect if you've ever seen a romantic comedy before, and contains more filler than content. It's not funny, insightful, entertaining, or anything more than something that generates noise in the background while you do laundry, much like many Netflix Originals.

This was a throwback to the late 1990s and early 2000s, and to be fair, was probably the last time I watched a teen rom-com like this. To that end, it did what it was meant to do and it's not at all amazing, but it was somehow a notalgic, nonsense film for when nothing else is on.

Honestly upsetting. A surreal and disturbing vision of toxic masculinity and unhealthy relationships. Please avoid at all costs. (Culture Night Feature)

Superficially dopey teen rom-com skates by thanks to largely agreeable performances from its young cast (and its fun to see Ringwald emerge from stage left a couple of times) and some attractive L.A. scenery, but the central relationships are pretty vapid, and the domestic violence dynamic in the relationship between King and Elordi is slightly distasteful and unsettling. Not that great, but you could could do a hell of a lot worse (see Part 2!)

This is the best of the three but it's not superb.

Holy crap this was bad. Watching current movies featuring teen stars from my youth is usually a mistake and this definitely is one.

60 just for jacob :)

Too predicatable!!! Too many montages what're you a pinko?!

https://letterboxd.com/pickle_man2135/film/the-kissing-booth/

Forbidden, complicated and supressed romance you say? Count me in! This is my new guilty pleasure film. Yeah, a teen romcom with a dose of drama. Nothing new, but sometimes pizza is just pizza and it's still good.

High school movie blended with elements of a rom-com... Half the movie is made up of montages so the characters aren't really developed and it just kinda randomly ends. It's not really bad enough to be memorable... meh..? The actors were good, mostly, it's just that everything else wasn't-ish.

if we ignore the terrible writing/acting (the actors did not have much to work with) the editing and plot isn't that bad. the worst thing about this movie is the harmful relationship it projects between elle and noah, he is abusive and she is a piece of shit so i guess they found their perfect match? would recommend for a hate watch session ;)

Extra points for having a some cute and heart felt moments. The performances of Megan du Plessis was pleasing. Others didn't stand out. The writing lacked punch. The tension and conflict was too tame and the love story was not very convincing. Music and production quality was good. There is nothing spectacular about the story or message, however, it was moderately entertaining throughout, so worth watching.

I am a bit embarrassed to have somewhat enjoyed this but I get the fascination: innocent forbidden secret crush blossoms into something more. What this has going for it that other movies of its ilk do not is that the dynamic isn't contrived. But it's not a good movie, obviously. But it does breeze snappily by like a really condensed TV show. It's not padded out like most Netflix stuff is, which must be applauded.

i absolutely despise this and encourage everyone not to watch it unless u wish to suffer (which is fine btw, i watch bad films on purpose too just like we all do... right?)