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    Movie Review

    Teen girl romance gets an update in modern but lightweight Crush

    Alex Bentley
    Apr 27, 2022 | 11:39 am
    Teen girl romance gets an update in modern but lightweight Crush
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    Teen comedies tend to fall in one of two categories: They’re either sweet, relatively wholesome stories about finding oneself or discovering love for the first time, or they’re ones that push the limit when it comes to sex, drugs, alcohol, and other things that teens are not “supposed” to do.

     

    The new Hulu film Crush tries to split the difference, with varying degrees of success. Paige (Rowan Blanchard) is an aspiring high school artist with dreams of going to Cal Arts. She long ago came out to her ultra-supportive single mother (Megan Mulally), who’s perhaps a bit too supportive, having all sorts of frank sexual discussions with and around Paige.

     

    Paige has long held a crush on her classmate, Gabriella (Isabella Ferreira), although she can barely form a sentence around her. That changes when Paige decides on the spur of the moment to try out for the school track team despite being supremely awkward. But instead of being paired with Gabriella as she hoped, the coach has Gabriella’s sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho), mentor her instead.

     

    The film, directed by Sammi Cohen and written by Kirsten King and Casey Rackham, features a by-the-numbers story despite featuring multiple gay/queer characters. Who Paige will end up falling for couldn’t be clearer than if they had put the person’s name in flashing red lights on the screen. The only difference is that the love triangle involves three girls instead of the typical heterosexual pairings.

     

    The film is not without its charms, though. One side plot involves Paige’s best friend Dillon (Tyler Alvarez) and his girlfriend Stacey (Teala Dunn), who are running against each for school president. Their friendly-but-competitive banter about the election and their insatiable lust for each other make for some of the funniest parts of the movie.

     

    Other parts are underexplored. The school has been the target of multiple graffiti works by a person who goes by “King Pun,” with many, including administrators, thinking it’s Paige. Paige resolves to find the real culprit, but her search is waylaid by a number of things, and by the time the actual King Pun is revealed, it’s both obvious and underwhelming.

     

    The filmmakers fill the movie with lots of explicit sexual jokes, profanity, drugs, and alcohol, making it a hard R – or TV-MA, since it’s on Hulu. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing that, but it’s kind of an odd choice since the movie is otherwise a light high school comedy with a lead character whose personality doesn’t match the lewdness.

     

    Blanchard is a rising star who’s had parts in TV shows like Girl Meets World, The Goldbergs, and Snowpiercer, and she does decently well here. Her role is mostly one-note, though, something a better teen movie would have remedied. Cravalho, who voiced the titular role of Moana, is arguably the best known of the young stars, and she has a brightness about her that shines through. Ferreira, Alvarez, and Dunn make the most of their respective parts, and deserve to be seen more as well.

     

    While Crush doesn’t rise above the status of “pleasant distraction,” it’s great that it features gay characters who live in a world free from any obvious stress about having to come out or deal with homophobia. The story surrounding them may not be great, but the representation and sentiment about how the world should be definitely is.

     

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    Crush debuts on Hulu on April 29.

    Rowan Blanchard in Crush.

    Rowan Blanchard in Crush
      
    Photo courtesy of Hulu
    Rowan Blanchard in Crush.
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    Movie review

    Early days of pandemic become a powder keg in tense movie Eddington

    Alex Bentley
    Jul 18, 2025 | 12:47 pm
    Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in Eddington
    Photo courtesy of A24
    Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in Eddington.

    The coronavirus pandemic had a profound impact on the entire world, one that has been shown in various ways by movies and TV shows. However, even though a number of productions have attempted to show what life was like during the early days of the pandemic, few have tried to truly reckon with the way lockdowns and restrictions changed people.

    Filmmaker provocateur Ari Aster does just that in Eddington, set in a fictional small town in New Mexico in early 2020 that proves to be a microcosm of the debates taking place worldwide at that time. Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is not a fan of mask mandates or other restrictions imposed by the government, while mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) tries to lead by example in an effort to keep his community safe.

    The men butt heads not just on how to deal with the pandemic, but also over a personal history involving Joe’s wife, Louise (Emma Stone). When news of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota makes its way to town, it starts a slow simmer among the town’s youth population, putting even more stress on Joe and his small department. Conspiracy theories, white guilt, partisan politics, cults, and more combine to make the community into a powder keg that threatens to explode at the slightest provocation.

    Aster (Midsommar, Beau is Afraid) takes aim at all sides in a film that’s part satire and part thriller. No matter how each viewer reacted to the pandemic, the film offers at least a character or two that will come close to representing their viewpoint. Although opinions may differ, it seems clear that Aster is not portraying one side as “right” or more righteous than the other. What he is doing is demonstrating just how much was happening in a short period of time, and how those things could negatively affect anyone.

    On the flip side, the film also challenges viewers with viewpoints that may not match their own, which can make for an uncomfortable experience at times. The reactions various characters have to certain events range from rational to wholly unexpected, and Aster seems to delight in keeping the audience on their toes the entire time. This is especially true when violence rears its ugly head, resulting in some intense and upsetting scenes.

    Not everything in the film lands, though. A subplot involving Louise and Vernon (Austin Butler), a cult leader who preys on her fears, feels tacked on, with no relation to the film as a whole. In fact, the character of Louise is a misfire in general, one whose purpose makes little sense. Aster also lets (asks?) some actors speak in almost inaudible tones at various points in the film, a frustrating experience in a film as dialogue-heavy as this one.

    Phoenix loves to dig into off-kilter characters, and this one ranks high on that scale. Even if you don’t enjoy what his character does, it’s hard to fault the performance that brings him to life. Most of Pascal’s scenes are with Phoenix, and while he matches Phoenix’s energy, the lower key nature of his character leaves him overshadowed. The nature of the film means few others make an impact, although Deidre O’Connell as Joe’s passive-aggressive mother-in-law and William Belleau as Officer Jiminiz Butterfly stand out in their scenes.

    Few of us would volunteer to go back to the baffling days of early 2020, but Eddington does a great job of examining what was happening at the time and how events united some and divided others. It’s not a feel-good film, but it is one that will make viewers re-examine their reactions at the time and how those influenced the current reality.

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    Eddington is now playing in theaters.

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