Adapted from the YA novel Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland, and starring Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart, this high-school romance takes a familiar formula and spikes it with something a little harder: bereavement, guilt and mental health issues.
Reinhart is magnetic as Grace, the damaged transfer student with a tragic backstory. Austin Abrams is adorably gauche as Henry, the editor of the school paper with a sideline in Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending smashed pottery with gold lacquer. Yes, Henry literally takes broken things and celebrates the beauty of their imperfections.
Heavy-handed symbolism aside, this is a decent little drama which digs into the bewildering limbo state between childhood and the adult world – a time in which everything hurts, heads are full of hormones and time stretches out interminably. Director Richard Tanne punctuates banal shots of corridors and classrooms with headier imagery – abandoned buildings filled with goldfish, psychedelic floods of colour. Being 17 is a trip. And not always a good one.
