The Flawed Plotlines of Netflix Original Movies

Eiman Rizwan
Jan 2, 2020
4 min read

Happy New Year everyone! If you’re like me, and you love movies, I decided that this week we would watch them. Specifically, Netflix original teen movies. Some of these movies, I’ve already seen, and am re-watching them, and some of them I’m watching for the first time. After I watched all of these movies, I realized something about the multi-million dollar company. THEY SHOULD STICK TO ONLY STREAMING MOVIES, NOT MAKING THEIR OWN CONTENT. These original teen movies suck. They’re so bad. None of them have proper storylines, or likeable protagonists. Today, we are going to be examining Tall Girl, Sierra Burgess is a Loser, and The Kissing Booth.

Tall Girl

Starring: Ava Michelle, Griffin Gluck, Luke Eisner, Sabrina Carpenter

Directed by: Nzhinga Stewart

This is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Spoiler alert, it’s a piece of garbage that a Netflix intern spat out on a piece of paper. If anything screams white privilege, it’s Tall Girl. Even though it’s directed by a middle aged woman of colour, it still manages to make a 90 minute movie about the “struggles” of a pretty, skinny, and wealthy white girl. I know that we’re supposed to talk about the plotline, but the acting just makes the entire thing worse. Ava Michelle, the protagonist Jodi, is recognized from Dance Moms. Which just shows that SHE SHOULD STICK TO DANCING. Her acting was really bland and she looked uninterested the entire time. The rest of the cast sucked too. Regardless, let’s move onto the plotline itself. The entire movie is about how tall Jodi is, when she’s only 6’1. Yeah, she’s only 6 feet tall. I bet you could name 15 girls who are that height, because it’s normal! That’s not an extremely bizarre height for a girl. Sure, it’s above average, but it’s not as rare as they make it out to be. Plus, she doesn’t have any medical conditions that caused her above average height. She struggles to find a boyfriend, when there are so many guys who are above 6’1. And in the movie, 3 guys want her! It’s such a stupid movie that doesn’t focus on real struggles, and provides a very dense and surface level look at her life and mind. And obviously, the movie had to end with a cheesy speech about body positivity and her acceptance of her height. That’s great and all, but what made you find the confidence within yourself? She didn’t show anything she was good at or used her height to her advantage. Overall, it’s a really bad movie and I hated it, next please.

Sierra Burgess is a Loser

Starring: Shannon Purser, Noah Centineo, Kristine Froseth

Directed by: Ian Samuels

If you ever want to brainwash a young and hormonal teenager into thinking they can catfish that person they like, show them this movie. This movie is literally a flaming pile of garbage, to say the least. It follows the story of Sierra, an intelligent girl who’s not traditionally “pretty”.( I use quotations because beauty is subjective and that’s what she is supposed to be). Mean girl, Veronica gives Sierra’s number to cute boy, Jamey, and when Jamey texts Sierra thinking she’s Veronica, Sierra goes along with it and catfishes him! The problem is, the justification of the catfishing. If they showed Sierra owning up to what she’s doing and having consequences, this movie wouldn’t be that bad. But, Sierra is so manipulative and plays the victim and blames her catfishing on the fact that she’s “ugly”. Yes, she literally victimizes herself in every situation that she’s wrong. The reason I hate this movie is because, in the end, Veronica and Jamey forgive her because of an average sounding song she wrote. Let me repeat, they forgive her for lying about her identity because of a song. And, in the end she gets the man of her dreams and they all live happily ever after. Netflix got all of its views for this movie from Mark Ruffalo rip-off, Noah Centineo.

The Kissing Booth

Starring: Joey King, Jacob Elordi, Joel Courtney

Directed by: Vince Marcello

Unlike the other movies, I don’t hate this movie because of it’s unlikeable characters, or unrealistic storylines. Infact, I hate this movie because of its lack of storyline. Like nothing interesting happens. Elle, the main character, has a childhood best friend named Lee. They made a set of rules when they were younger, and one of them was “siblings are off limits”. This is obviously shown to be unfair, because Elle has a 7 year old brother, and Lee has a “hot” 17 year old brother. After Elle and Noah, Lee’s brother, secretly get together, Lee finds out and there’s a whole cringey scene that’s supposed to be emotional. This movie has some problematic undertones because it shows both Flynn brothers being super controlling over Elle, and her thinking it’s “cute and protective”. Which is not. Plus, they made those rules when they were 7, why are they still following them? Like you’re almost 18, grow up PLEASE! Overall, this movie sucked, and it was very cringey and hard to watch.

The Problems

Every year, Netflix continues to pump out these cringey movies that are supposed to resonate with young teens, but don’t. These directors make storylines that they can’t even follow through with. They are making movies about things that don’t matter. I understand that movies are supposed to be fun and entertaining and not everything needs to have a serious message to it, but they should at least make the movie interesting. Another thing Netflix can’t do is tap into the mind of a teenager. Some amazing movies about young adults include Ladybird, Eighth Grade, and The Edge of Seventeen. These movies show the reality of teenagers and their struggles. These Netflix movies have boring and unrealistic storylines, along with dialogues that adults think teenagers say, but don’t. In conclusion, Netflix need to up their game with the movie department, or just only stream movies and not make them.