Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
The untold story of Rosaline, played by Kaitlyn Dever, Romeo’s ex-girlfriend.
Yikes another group of old people trying to right how they think Gen Z talk. This film is deeply unfunny on multiple levels and more often than not crosses over into irritating territory, I didn’t laugh once whilst watching.
Moreover, the titular heroine of Rosaline was deeply unlikeable for most of the film and behaved like a brat who used people for her own ends. Not only did this make her detestable it also meant that she needed to be redeemed by the end of the film in a narrative sense, yet the film just thought that it could cram all of her apologies and soul searching into a 5 minute sequence then move on which makes the whole thing feel incredibly shallow.
In addition to those glaring issues the film also has Rosaline using men for sex and then just chucking them treating them more as bodies than as people, and whilst I acknowledge that there is a long cinematic tradition of male characters doing this, in modern times it is seen as wrong to do so. As such if Rosealine’s character was male and behaved the same way their would be an outcry against this film yet it is okay because she is a woman? Surely for things to be truly equal if anyone regardless of gender just uses a person for their body and doesn’t even treat them like a human being it deserves to be called out as wrong. To ply further scorn, the film also includes an incredibly reductive stereotypical gay best friend character, played by Spencer Stevenson, which feels like it belongs in a film from at least a decade ago.
Overall, a terrible film that no one will fondly remember.
Pros.
A nice central romance
Dever is trying her best
Cons.
The lead is awful throughout
It is unfunny
Some of its characters are reductive stereotypes
It has nothing to say and isn’t a clever play on Romeo and Juliet
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Another Millennial Reviewer 