Hulu's "Crush" - Skip or Stream?
Crush is a return to the romantic comedies of the 90s with LGBT teens taking the lead. The film centers on Paige (Rowan Blanchard), a junior in high school with dreams of attending CalArts. She’s applying for a summer internship, but has to show off her “happiest moment” in the medium of her choice. Her first idea is to draw her years-long crush on Gabriella (Isabella Ferreira).
There’s a graffiti artist by name the of Kingpun who has gained notoriety at Paige’s school by tagging different walls with various puns. All of the kids at school think that it’s Paige behind these murals, but she’s adamant that it’s not her. Even the faculty believes Paige is the culprit and threatens to suspend her. Paige offers to try and get to the bottom of the mystery in lieu of a suspension. The administrators agree, but also argue that her lack of participation in school activities still makes her a suspect. To further distance herself from Kingpun and to get closer to her crush, Gabriella, Paige joins the track team.
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Paige’s plan to get close to Gabriella backfires when the track coach pairs Paige with Gabriella’s twin sister, AJ (Auli'i Cravalho), instead. Paige and AJ start to spend more time together and Paige’s whole world shifts. Slowly but surely, her crush on Gabriella is dissipating and a newfound crush on AJ is growing. With all these new feelings, Kingpun still at large, and her CalArts deadline looming, Paige is in over her head.
Unlike a lot of current teen movies, Crush doesn’t rely on technology and social media to create conflict. Instead, the film’s structure and development is much more akin to that of a 90s teen rom com where widespread cell phone usage doesn’t exist yet. In that sense, Crush feels very simplistic, but not in a bad way. The lack of technology lets the film focus on the overwhelming feelings of being seventeen and having a crush. The rush of just being around them, the quickened heartbeat when your eyes lock, and the intoxicating way they smile at you.
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Crush didn’t reinvent the genre of romantic comedies, but it revived and diversified it. It’s one of the first films geared toward LGBT teens that isn’t bogged down with coming out stories or tragedies. It’s a true blue romantic comedy in the purest sense of the phrase for a group of people that are used to seeing themselves portrayed in a variety of depressing ways. Crush is funny, bursting with chemistry from the leads, and lets LGBT teens know that happily ever after belongs to them, too.
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