As a big fan of Heartstopper I was looking forward to watching the final movie and wow was I in for a disappointment. This is a rant about everything that I believe is wrong with the movie. By no means is that taking away from the three seasons before. Heartstopper remains a great series and the most wholesome experience for someone queer – just sad that this movie will now forever be part of its legacy.
Everything seems off in the Heartstopper movie. The characters don’t act the way that we got used to in the previous three seasons. A lot of topics are hinted at – but none is developed in any way. The main topic of the break-up and getting back together of Charlie and Nick is unbelievable and parts of it downright annoying. The dialogues are so bad it is worse than cringe. I felt so sorry for the actors who had to do work with this script. Sound editing is horrible. Production quality is low (that Pride scene! omg!).
But let’s dive in a bit more step by step. The movie opens up a range of topics that each and every one would have lent itself to some interesting material and unfortunately each and every one just evaporates in thin air going nowhere.
- Charlie starting a group for queer students and supporting younger queer kids: There is some pressure from the head of school but turns out that it can simply be ignored. There is a young queer guy named Alfie who gets bullied. Well, Charlie just tells the bullies off and everything is swell. Duh? Even Alfie can’t believe it. In any case, this would have been an interesting storyline for a movie. Opportunity wasted.
- Tao and Elle: They have a break-up. No reason given. In the end Elle is acting cruelly with Tao telling him to go all in for their last dance together at prom just to wander off and leave him alone. The movie could have been centered around Elle as a trans person, the transphobia to face as a trans person and the relationship with Tao. Instead, the prom scene shows a selfish bitch Elle – which I absolutely hate as it is not the Elle we all know from the seasons.
- Charlie’s eating disorder and self-harming tendencies: This topic starts to be addressed mid-movie with Charlie not eating and thinking about self-harm – and then vanishes to be never addressed again…
- Nick’s dysfunctional family: Nick’s abusive father appears in retrospect with a young Nick. His brother is all of a sudden not a prick anymore. His mother is giving a confusing speech about her role in that dysfunctional family. Nick is applauded for seeing that his father was abusive. Nothing’s properly explained or followed up on. How to be a compassionate human being leading a wholesome life with a background of a dysfunctional family is certainly an important topic. But you have to look elsewhere for any profound learnings on this.
- Mr. Ajayi and Mr. Farouk: One of my favourite couples of all time could have gotten some screen time. However, the only thing that the movie does is show that they are opening up in front of the students about there’s something going on. They are mere props in the movie. Bright side being that they have not been screwed up in its wake. So I’m still waiting for that spinoff.
Apart from the storyline or lack thereof there are a couple of things I’m downright angry about:
- The Pride scene. WTF? The scene feels like a B-movie equivalent of a caricature of a trans right commercial. I wonder whether this scene can be attributed to low production quality. Heartstopper has been great in featuring trans people and promoting trans rights. This scene feels like a caricature of the earlier efforts. Sense8 showed how to have a great Pride scene. They went to Sao Paulo and shot on-site during the Sao Paulo Pride. I’m sure the producers of the Heartstopper movie could have gone to any big or small city Pride and the scene would have been incredible and fans would have loved it. What a squandered opportunity!
- Pushing what is in my mind a very patriarchal and heteronormative approach to dating and relationships. Even the idea that Charlie or Nick might be interested in anyone else but each other is depicted as something like blasphemy. My god, the boys are teenagers! Even after breaking up someone just trying to strike up a conversation is depicted as someone that should be dismissed abruptly without any consideration. Why not having one (or both) actually make out with someone else? Is that so bad? Or why could they not have (hold your seats!) a threesome? The Heartstopper movie is coming full circle to a relationship idea of the 50s and 60s of the last century.
- Turning to preaching instead of showing. The power of good art is to show and reveal something. You show the lives of your protagonists to make a point about homophobia, transphobia and what it might mean to be or not be an asshole. The other way is preaching. Become a priest, don a robe and start preaching from the pulpit. The Heartstopper movie is all about preaching. The characters are held captive to the many sermons in the script. While I agree with the message of the sermons I take issue with the form. The thoughts behind the script should have been worked into an editorial or into a speech at a Pride event instead. But this doesn’t make a good film.
- Charlie’s and Nick’s break up story. Well, it doesn’t make any sense. Nothing more needs to be said on that one.
Finally, is there anything good about the movie? Well, it’s hard to find. Mr. Farouk doesn’t disappoint – mostly because he has what feels like two lines of dialogue in the whole movie. Alfie has his moment with telling Charlie off after what comes close to him being gaslighting from Charlie. And some scenes are hilarious in an unintended way. Like a guy saying hi to Charlie who just reacts with a short “No!”. A response so random it is truly ridiculous and great meme material.
At the end, I’m left with a peculiar sensation that this is exactly the kind of movie I would expect an AI to write after being fed with the scripts for the previous seasons. The Heartstopper characters are all there, the sense of uplift and liberation for queer people is also there, but just as a ghost or shell of its former self as everything is cast into senseless and lifeless mimicry of what the three seasons of Heartstopper were.