The Perfect Date (2019)
Dir: Chris Nelson

The Perfect Date is a young adult targetted romantic comedy starring teen "heartthrob" Noah Centineo. This is the story of a high school student who creates an app to offer services as a fake date to make money for an Ivy League college. When he develops feelings for someone, things get complicated. The Perfect Date is based on the 2016 book 'The Stand-In' by Steve Bloom, which personally until researching this film, I had never heard of.

In the past year or so, Netflix has been cranking out these sub-par, ludicrous romantic comedies for their teenage audience, and don't get me wrong - I don't hate them. Noah Centineo is doing his rounds with Netflix, starring in films such as 'To All The Boys I Loved Before' and 'Sierra Burgess Is a Loser' and the teenage/young adult audiences are lapping them up, hence more being pumped out.

I've had The Perfect Date in my Netflix list since the premiere date, out of curiosity. It seemed like one of those films that I'd watch in the middle of the night when I was too tired to commit to a heavy drama that'd require a lot of concentration, but too awake not to watch a film, and that night was tonight. I haven't heard anyone say a single word about this film since it's release month, so there wasn't a huge hype for it like the aforementioned film, 'To All The Boys I Loved Before' which has already produced two sequels which are yet to be released, also based on young adult novels.

The film itself I found to be average, I didn't hate it, it served its purpose, told the story it was supposed to be telling with the cheesy love scenes and all the connotations of a teenage drama packed in like sardines, but I don't think I'll be hankering for a second watch anytime soon.

Overall, for the typical teenage audience who swoon over Noah Centineo, this isn't a bad film and sure I'd recommend it to that audience but I don't think it'll make it into any top rom-com lists or columns anytime soon. But in all honesty, It's worth a watch if cheesy rom-coms are your thing.