Rating: 3/5

The Kissing Booth is a Netflix Film adapted from the book “The Kissing Booth” by Beth Reekles.

Actors Joey King, Joel Courtney, and Jacob Elordi lead in this cute movie.

Elle Evans, played by Joey King, has a crush on her best friend’s brother Noah Flynn, played by Jacob Elordi. The sweetest part is that Joey King and Jacob Elordi are dating in real life, I guess their first on set kiss was truly magical. The movie starts with a time-lapse of Elle and her best friend’s, Lee Flynn, adventures throughout the years. But, the rest of the movie mostly focuses on her budding relationship with his brother and her attempts to keep the relationship a secret from Lee. We get to see why Elle and Lee have such a strong friendship, but there is basically zero character development for Noah Flynn. Here is what we do know about Noah:

1. He fights, a lot.

2. He’s got a reputation for being a player.

3. He is apparently super smart because he got into Harvard.

We don’t really get to see the cause of his fighting. Was he bullied as a kid? Does he have some insecurities that he’s trying to hide?

I would’ve loved to know exactly how Noah got into Harvard when he doesn’t seem to study, and he definitely isn’t involved in any school activities except football. Maybe he got recruited by Harvard’s football team? We will never know.

Noah is the bad boy with an overly protective side that’s borderline abusive. He doesn’t like any guys to talk to Elle and he tries to tell her who she can and can’t talk to. But he treats her right and tries to become a better person. Classic romcom relationship. Meanwhile Lee finds the perfect girl for him but she barely has two lines in the entire movie, I definitely would’ve loved to see his storyline be a little more prevalent. After all, he’s the reason that Elle is keeping her relationship with Noah a secret. It’s definitely different from most movies where the girl has a crush on someone else but eventually realizes her best friend is the one for her.  Here, Lee basically becomes inconsequential when the focus shifts to Noah and Elle’s relationship.

Even with the lack of character development and overall weak storyline, I was smiling through most of the movie, because the banter between Noah and Elle is really cute. But we still don’t know anything about them except that Noah and Elle really like each other and Lee wouldn’t approve of it. It’s a good movie and definitely better than some romcoms, but it needs more depth.

In reality, the relationship would never work because:

1. Noah refuses to allow Elle to talk to any guys.

2. Elle is constantly stopping Noah from fighting people.

In reality, Elle would constantly be trying to prove to Noah that she isn’t talking to any other guys and Noah would always be trying to prove to Elle that he doesn’t have an anger problem. Really not a healthy relationship. Or maybe they would live happily ever after and his anger problems would fade because he finally got the girl. Who knows.

What did you think about the movie?