This movie is extremely cheesy, but that is what I would expect from a movie of this nature so not at all why I'm giving it 2 stars. What I didn't expect was for me to have such a strong hope that young girls don't watch this movie. The only reason I gave this movie 2 stars is because the acting is actually pretty good for a movie of this genre!
**Spoiler Alert**
There are many reasons that this movie bothered me. First, I felt that the main character was portrayed as a piece of property by her best friend and her boyfriend (they end up fighting over her and basically giving her ultimatums.) The boyfriend is also very controlling of her -telling her what to do, where to go, keeping other boys from talking to her. She's pretty assertive and tells him she doesn't like it, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. It seems because he's the hott/bad boy/jock, for the most part, he can get away with this type of abuse. Another detail that killed me was that Noah is also the school player (of course -he's the hott/bad boy/jock)but somehow, she changes him and they fall in love. The second time they kiss, which is her second kiss EVER, is also the same night they declare that they are a couple and they have sex on the beach. It is not implied that they used protection, either, and with teen pregnancies on the rise, it needs to be apparent. Also, to me, their relationship developed way too fast and shows girls that in order to be in a "real" relationship with a boy, you have to have sex with him. Finally, at the end of the movie when he goes off to college on the other side of the country, she says that she finally feels like she has all this confidence and can do anything all because of falling in love with that boy. That was the nail in the coffin to me. The character was great all on her own, she didn't need a boy to show her that.
**Spoiler Alert**
There are many reasons that this movie bothered me. First, I felt that the main character was portrayed as a piece of property by her best friend and her boyfriend (they end up fighting over her and basically giving her ultimatums.) The boyfriend is also very controlling of her -telling her what to do, where to go, keeping other boys from talking to her. She's pretty assertive and tells him she doesn't like it, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. It seems because he's the hott/bad boy/jock, for the most part, he can get away with this type of abuse. Another detail that killed me was that Noah is also the school player (of course -he's the hott/bad boy/jock)but somehow, she changes him and they fall in love. The second time they kiss, which is her second kiss EVER, is also the same night they declare that they are a couple and they have sex on the beach. It is not implied that they used protection, either, and with teen pregnancies on the rise, it needs to be apparent. Also, to me, their relationship developed way too fast and shows girls that in order to be in a "real" relationship with a boy, you have to have sex with him. Finally, at the end of the movie when he goes off to college on the other side of the country, she says that she finally feels like she has all this confidence and can do anything all because of falling in love with that boy. That was the nail in the coffin to me. The character was great all on her own, she didn't need a boy to show her that.