Chemical Hearts (2020) Movie Review
Chemical Hearts is the latest original film from Amazon. Upon first glance at the logline I figured I’d be sitting down for another mushy teenage rom com, which I’m very into. I was dead wrong, but in a good way.
High school senior Henry (Austin Abrams) is vying for the Editor in Chief position at his school newspaper. He tells us via voiceover that nothing very remarkable has happened to him up to this point in his life. That is, until he meets transfer student Grace (Lili Reinhart). She is a little standoff-ish and walks with a limp and a cane. Writer and director Richard Tanne lets you surmise what you will about the cane until roughly thirty minutes into the movie, when it is revealed that Grace was in a bad car accident. She’s put directly in Henry’s path when she begins working on the school newspaper alongside him.
Henry is immediately smitten but Grace is harder to read. There are many layers to Grace that we only see as they are revealed to Henry over the course of the movie. I don’t want to explicitly say what the layers are, but it is some seriously heavy stuff, especially for a seventeen year old girl. Usually teen rom coms are full of sappy stuff that makes you simultaneously cringe, roll your eyes, and smile. Chemical Hearts does have some sappy material. Grace and Henry bond over a Pablo Neruda poem and there are plenty of mentions of the pains of growing up.
However, writer and director Richard Tanne infuses these sappy moments with heavy doses of reality checks and adult problems. Both Henry and Grace are forced to find their way through a haze of depression, death, and intense emotional scarring. Tanne admittedly gets tripped up a bit trying to rush things. Grace goes from prickly to being genuinely interested in Henry awfully quickly. A montage is thrown in the mix to speed things up even further, which feels a little bit like cheating.
But, where Tanne really shines is showcasing how both Grace and Henry must discover that sometimes loving someone just isn’t enough. Tanne’s story will break your heart, mainly because Grace and Henry are both so likeable, which is a tribute to Abrams and Reinhart’s acting performances. Neither of them is the bad guy and Tanne does a good job of showcasing how they’re trying their best in an impossible situation. Chemical Hearts follows in the footsteps of rom coms like A Walk to Remember, highlighting teenage love in all of its intensity and all of its pain. It’s good to be reminded that sometimes love isn’t enough, but it is always a beautiful journey.
Film or Movie: Movie
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You like teenage rom coms
2. You like love stories
3. You liked A Walk to Remember
