The film simply doesn’t bring anything new to the genre. Henry even has a neurosurgeon sister at the ready to explain the physical effects of heartbreak. In the attempts to add depth, the film throws several clumsy and obvious metaphors at the viewer: Henry “Page,” who has always wanted to be a writer, is saved by a girl named “Grace.” Grace compares herself to Henry’s hobby of repairing broken pottery with gold, a practice known as kintsugi, yelling “I’m not one of your vases” in a climactic argument. Ultimately a paint-by-numbers YA romance, any savvy viewer will see each “twist” coming from a mile away. (Literally, Henry introduces himself by telling the audience nothing interesting has ever happened to him.) While his friends may be people of color or LGBTQ, their stories are relegated in favor of the story’s least interesting character. Supporting characters, Grace included, feel thinly written as stereotypes that serve his character development.

Tanne employs a laser focus on Henry with the result that viewers never see events from another character’s perspective. Writers: Screenplay by Richard Tanne 👨🏼🇺🇸 based on the novel by Krystal Sutherland 👩🏼🇬🇧Įarlier this year, writer-director Richard Tanne adapted Krystal Sutherland’s YA novel Our Chemical Hearts into a film for Amazon, which follows a high school senior named Henry Page (Austin Abrams) and his romance with Grace Town (Lili Reinhart), a mysterious transfer student who walks with a cane.

Chemical hearts