Sierra Burgess is… Mediocre?

Sierra Burgess is a Loser is the latest romcom released by Netflix, starring Stranger Things‘ Shannon Purser and everyone’s favourite heartthrob Noah Centineo from All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.

With hordes of people anxious for its release, this movie has been one of the most highly awaited movies of September. However, is all the hype regarding the movie really justified?

The romcom is a present day retelling of Shakespeare’s Cyrano de Bergerac and it centers around the theme of mistaken identity. The lives of the two main characters, Sierra (Shannon Purser) and Jamey (Noah Centineo) intertwine as a result of a prank played by the resident mean girl Veronica (Kristine Froseth).

The story begins with a nervous and hesitant Jamey approaching Veronica at a small dingy diner where he asks for her number. She, however, decides to have a little fun and supplies him with Sierra’s number instead while claiming that it is her own. A relationship between Jamey and Sierra develops over text, but Jamey still presumes that the number he is texting is Veronica’s. When Sierra finds out that he thinks that she is Veronica, she joins hands with Veronica to make a deal. Sierra offers to tutor Veronica so she can dazzle her boyfriend in college and Veronica agrees to make physical appearances for facetime calls and dinner dates with Jamey.

The friendship between Veronica and Sierra is unexpected but it is refreshing and much more interesting to watch blossom than the boring, unoriginal and disturbing relationship between Jamey and Sierra.

The movie touches upon many sensitive and important topics such as body shaming, bullying and other issues which are prevalent in the lives of teenagers. However, many things are wrong with the movie, from its offensive jokes about the LGBTQ community to questions of consent which arise after watching the kissing scene between Jamey and Sierra. In that scene, Jamey leans in to kiss Veronica while they are on a date but Sierra switches positions with her, puts her hand over his eyes and kisses him. The problem here is that Jamey is under the impression that he is kissing Veronica, which makes the kiss totally non-consensual. Many people have gone so far as to say that it’s tantamount to sexual assault. Not only is this kiss extremely dubious, but it’s also disturbing and horrific to watch.

The acting cannot be faulted, as both Noah Centineo and Shannon Purser bring life to dull and unoriginal characters. The supporting cast does its fair share of work as well and makes this subpar storyline just a little more interesting. All in all, this movie has a muddled and disorderly plot and only just manages to be saved by an extraordinary array of talent in the form of the actors.

To learn more about this movie, click here.