“Sweethearts” Starts Raunchy, Ends Sweet

Sweethearts (Jordan Weiss, 2024) 3½ out of 5 stars

In my experience, maintaining any relationship after high school, whether platonic or romantic, is an incredibly difficult task. Your lives are moving in different directions and remaining close becomes difficult. But what if you realize you’re holding on so tight that you aren’t forming new relationships? This is the dilemma our protagonists are faced with in co-writer/director Jordan Weiss’ feature debut, Sweethearts. While there is some insight into male-female friendships, overall, it ends up being a perfectly fine Gen Z rom-com.

Ben (Nico Hiraga, Moxie) and Jamie (Kiernan Shipka, The Last Showgirl) are Midwestern childhood friends in their first semester at the same university. Both are attempting to maintain long-distance relationships with their titular high-school sweethearts, Claire (Ava DeMary, After Yang) and Simon (Charlie Hall, also Moxie). Ben has difficulty setting boundaries with Claire and Jamie only calls Simon when she feels uncomfortable or lonely. The two eventually realize their relationships are stunting their growth and hatch a plan to do a double break-up the night they come home for Thanksgiving break.

The easygoing chemistry between Hiraga and Shipka makes them convincing as longtime friends. Much of the film’s comedy comes from seeing these two bounce off each other, so they more than deliver in that regard. Hiraga has fun being the put-upon nice guy who desperately needs to grow a backbone, while Shipka’s cynicism prevents her from seeing how many people on campus genuinely want to be her friend. These character flaws play out to an absurd degree during an extended house-party sequence in the first half. Weiss leans very hard into bawdy gross-out humor here, to the point that the second half feels toned down by comparison.

Once Ben and Jamie make it home, the film splits into two storylines: one following our protagonists and the other following their mutual friend, Palmer (Caleb Hearon, I Used to Be Funny). Palmer took a gap year after high school to work in Paris, but he’s had a miserable time. Upon returning home, he’s eager to finally come out as gay to his classmates but keeps running into problems while trying to help Ben and Jamie.

It’s through Palmer that Weiss and her co-writer Dan Brier introduce interesting themes of community. He’s convinced that being a fashionable socialite is the only acceptable way to be gay, so he’s reluctant to share how Paris isn’t what he thought it would be. The arc he goes on is almost completely divorced from the main story, but it resolves itself in a surprisingly tender way. Think McLovin from Superbad, but sweeter.

In the end, the central conflict comes down to Ben and Jamie’s friendship. Their romances may be holding them back, but they’re intent on sticking with each other (to the point of codependence). Rom-com veterans can venture a guess as to how their narrative ends, but you may be pleasantly surprised. Weiss and Brier play with the classic When Harry Met Sally… tropes around male-female friendships, but in a way meant to connect with a new generation of fans. I only wish Sweethearts could have better balanced its ratio of raunchiness to wholesomeness, but other than that, it’s a fun time.

George W. Campbell

George W. Campbell is a director/screenwriter/editor from Bowie, Maryland, whose films focus on themes of family and personal relationships. As a Nicaraguan-American filmmaker, he aims to highlight specific parts of his culture and personal experiences (songs, dances, foods, and language).