REVIEW: Sweethearts [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 98 minutes
Release Date: November 28th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: HBO Max
Director(s): Jordan Weiss
Writer(s): Dan Brier & Jordan Weiss

Let’s go make some fucking memories!

Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) and Ben (Nico Hiraga) have been best friends for years—perhaps to the detriment of their other relationships. Perhaps to the detriment of their own personal happiness too considering their decision to go away to college together and maintain long distance relationships with their significant others (Charlie Hall’s Simon and Ava DeMary’s Claire respectively) was largely predicated on them still having each other. There was no need to leave their bubbles or comfort zones. No need to make new friends. And now, on the cusp of Thanksgiving break, they’re realizing they’ve made a mistake.

Jordan Weiss’ Sweethearts (co-written by Dan Brier) hits its stride when the pair decide to go to a party their so-far-out-of-the-loop social standing didn’t realize was happening despite its starting point being in Ben’s dorm room (organized by his roommate). They’re desperate to have fun, but not too much fun since their partners are never far from mind. Well, that inability to leave the fence makes it impossible to truly just let their identities shine. They isolate themselves. Watch the rest of the group slowly peel off into other directions. And end up stepping into the type of awkward, pariah-making situations that can only happen in an R-rated comedy. Something has to give.

Cue the plan for a tandem break-up. Codependent to a fault, Jamie and Ben practically organize their entire trip home around the best way to let Simon and Claire down without causing a scene or accidentally finding themselves in bed with them instead. Well, carefully laid plans never go as intended and theirs falls off a ledge fast. While it’s a nightmare for them, however, it’s a bonus for us. Not just because the antics that ensue from this comedy of errors (fake IDs, aggressive flirting, etc.) are the point of the movie, but also because their failures provide ample room to follow around the third wheel of their platonic trifecta, Palmer (Caleb Hearon).

For all the When Harry Met Sally? overtures and subversions (figuratively and literally) about Jamie and Ben’s relationship with their partners and each other, the real standout thread of Sweethearts lies in Palmer’s parallel journey towards his own enlightenment. Those two have been spending so much time together that they need to take a breath and discover who they want to be apart. Palmer has conversely spent so much time alone (taking a gap year in Paris to embrace his gay-ness) that he’s in need of community. Thankfully, in the course of fulfilling “wing man” duties to Jamie and Ben’s co-break-ups, he discovers it in the most unlikely of places.

There are some really funny moments throughout the film—gross-out, sardonic, and nostalgic in equal measure—and Shipka and Hiraga have a great rapport that hints at a potential for romance while also cementing the fact that members of the opposite gender can just be friends without worrying about attraction getting in the way. There’s a real “bro” tone to their dynamic that lets them be candid about sex without ever demanding an awkward pause to unpack. Weiss and Brier will tease confusion while leaning into rom-com tropes we all know and love, but you can trust that they understand the characters they’ve written and the audience they are catering towards.

But it’s Hearon who steals the show via a subplot of personal discovery and the realization that everything he wants as a gay man exists in small town Ohio as easily as it does in Europe—if you’re open to seeing it. There’s a palpable Big Brother chemistry between him and the duo of Tramell Tillman and Joel Kim Booster as well as romance with Miles Gutierrez-Riley’s Lukas to deliver the wholesome charm necessary to balance Jamie and Ben’s implosions. Yes, following him takes us away from the “main plot,” but I’d argue his path is both more interesting and makes theirs better through the act of “ruining” it. And if Palmer finds love, the leads can avoid it being thrust upon them.