Unless you don't own a Netflix account or you live under a rock, you should know that Noah Centineo has been in the spotlight lately, and what this means is that his newest Netflix movie "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser" has been highly anticipated and when it came out September 7th, you better believe I sat on my couch and watched it as soon as I could.
I'll admit that I was excited for this movie, but after watching it, I am extremely disappointed in the results. For the first time in my life, I was hoping for a rom-com to end badly.
The premise of this movie starts out almost exactly how you would imagine any high school rom-com to be like: Sierra (Shannon Purser) is your stereotypical band geek who only has one friend in the entire world, with little to no social life. She's extremely smart, has high aspirations, and she's content with her life except for one minor detail: Our protagonist is being constantly bullied in regards to her physical appearance by, you guessed it, the most beautiful and popular girl in the school, Veronica (Kristine Froseth).
Since Veronica is dead set on ruining Sierra's life (for reasons that are never uncovered), Veronica, being the conniving and mean person that she is, plays a mean trick on our future love interest, Jamey (Noah Centineo). When Jamey asks Veronica for her phone number, instead of giving it to him in a shocking turn of events, Veronica gives him Sierra's.
This leads Jamey to begin texting who he believes the entire time to be Veronica, when in reality, it's Sierra. The worst part about it? Sierra plays along with it and takes on the identity of Veronica without her knowledge (at least for a short period of time).
Here we can see Sierra living up to her title: a loser. A pretty big loser, too. She literally catfishes this man throughout the ENTIRE movie.
It should also be noted that Jamey isn't some guy who she has had a crush on for an extended period of time--she has no idea who he is until he sends a picture of himself through text message to her--and she decides then and there that she likes him. She refuses to give up the facade, even going as far as getting Veronica in on it and the movie plays out a plot full of trickery and deceit.
They even go as far as having Veronica and Jamey go on a date, have him close his eyes, and have Sierra kiss him when he believes it to be Veronica the entire time.
Uh, hello?? That is not consensual whatsoever! Who thought that was a good idea? It is wrong in so many different ways, and it is in no way cute or romantic.
When we get past the whole plot point of Sierra being manipulative and borderline sociopathic with her catfishing, we also see that she's not a good person in general. At first glance one would assume that Sierra is a smart girl, but we see that she acts entirely from her emotions and ever rarely from her brain. When she sees Veronica and Jamey kissing, Sierra acts out in jealousy (Like, hey, maybe they should be kissing because Jamey does believe that they're dating, but it's OK. girl--go be crazy), and she hacks into Veronica's Instagram account, posts her Direct Messages from a previous breakup, and embarrases her and Jamey in front of the entire school.
Guess what? She still gets the guy in the end. Somehow.
It's not realistic, and I understand that movies aren't supposed to be sometimes, but this movie went way too far and crossed a line. We're expected to root for the villain, and please excuse me if I think that she deserved anything BUT a happy ending for what she did.
