Chemical Hearts movie review by Movie Review Mom

MOVIE TITLE: Chemical Hearts AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON STREAMING this weekend

RATING: R

LENGTH: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: B

IN A NUTSHELL:

This dramatic romance was directed by Richard Tanne. He also wrote it based on the novel by Krystal Sutherland called Our Chemical Hearts. It’s a coming-of-age love story about two high school students are chosen to co-edit their school paper. It’s a much darker teenage romance movie than most and offers heartache as we explore love and loss.

If you love the movie, you can grab the book here:

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TIPS FOR PARENTS:

A couple of teens are in bed together. We don’t see flesh, but we know what’s happening.
Teen drug use and smoking
Lesbian relationship & kissing
Kids will be introduced to romantic poetry. This movie actually felt like poetry itself with its reflective language and insights in pain and healing.
Some profanity, including quite a few F-bombs.
Talk of vandalism
Talk of suicide and death
Teens will relate to the drama and heartache of being a teenager.
Lots of awkward kissing
You see a girl in just her underwear.
Teens will definitely enjoy this movie more than any other age group. Most adults will be glad they’re not teenagers anymore.

THEMES:

The title refers to the hormonal chemicals raging through teenager’s brains. Seriously, that’s what the narrator/Henry Page tells us at the beginning of the movie. Several conversations occur between various characters when love is described as a chemical process in the brain and body. When lovers break up, it’s like going through withdrawal as your body struggles to live without the steady flow of dopamine (the happiness hormone) anymore. Yep. True. Love is a very complicated thing.
PTSD. The ups and downs and pains of recovering from a traumatic experience.
Your first love. Ahhhh…They’ll always be a part of you.
Friendship
Loneliness
Family

THINGS I LIKED:

The cast includes Lili Reinhart, Austin Abrams, Sarah Jones. Embrace the awkwardness.
Lili plays a mysterious transfer student named Grace Town. (symbolic name?) We don’t learn why she walks with a cane until 19 minutes into the movie. You don’t see her smile for 38 minutes. Lili Reinhart admitted in a recent interview that she suffers from depression and anxiety. She sees a therapist to help her cope. I’m sure she tapped into those feelings while playing the role in this movie. She was actually rejected several times for her role as Betty Cooper in Riverdale: The Complete First Season (DVD) but she hung in there and eventually got the part. By the way, she also works as executive producer of this film!
The film utilizes the Japanese idea of Kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi. It’s the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the broken areas with paint mixed with gold powder or silver. The concept is that even broken things can be repaired and made into something new and beautiful again. The goal is not to make it look like nothing happened, but to actually celebrate what happened and still see the beauty that was always there. It’s an effective illustration in this movie to demonstrate how Grace was physically and emotionally damaged in an accident but could be stronger because of it. Henry reflects on his high school years and life, stating, “Scars are not reminders of what’s been broken, but what’s been created.”
Wow, Henry has a fireplace in his bedroom. Nice!
Nice soundtrack
It doesn’t skirt around the serious issues of adolescence, but instead, dives headfirst into the pain, loneliness, and heartbreaks of the teenage soul.
It’s a mature step forward when a teenager can put himself in an adult’s shoes and realize that the adult, too, experienced similar feelings of pain, loneliness, awkwardness, and all of the other drama of being a teen. In the movie, the teens refer to this crazy period of time between being a carefree child and a responsible adult as living in “limbo.”
Grace wears a lot of flannel and masculine clothes and we learn why toward the end of the movie.
There’s an effective use of physical and emotional scars.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

Where were the parents? How is it that two teens were allowed to go “full-on” (if you know what I mean) in a bedroom in the house and spend the night together?
Unfortunately, there isn’t really much chemistry between Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams. What a shame since the title of the movie suggests we’re going to see and feel a lot of chemistry in the movie.
There are some acting moments that feel really forced and scripted. Of course, they ARE acting and their lines ARE scripted, but it reminds you that you’re watching a movie. I love movies that allow you to get lost in the story and characters so much that you forget you’re actually viewing a film. You know?
It’s full of tropes from a typical John Green novel.

FUNNY LINES:

None. This is pure drama and even depressing.

INTERESTING LINES:

“You’re never more alive than when you’re a teenager.” – Henry (Austin Abrams)
“Adults are just scarred adults who were lucky enough to get out of limbo.” – Grace Town (Lili Reinhart)
“Love is a chemical reaction that comes and goes. Here’s the good news: so does heartbreak.” – Suds (Sarah Jones)
“When you’re a teenager, the drugs in your brain make you make decisions that rip you from your childhood.” – Henry
“We tend to think of scars as ugly, imperfect as things we want to forget, but they never go away.” – Henry
“I have to go find my words again.” – Grace

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