“Sierra Burgess is a Loser” is a loser

More stories from Allison Yoder

This year, Netflix has been releasing one teenage rom-com after another. The first of these was “The Kissing Booth,” which was huge on Twitter, but crashed shortly after, with viewers pointing out the many flaws in the plotline and characters. Next came “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” which was a hit, and had viewers swept off their feet with the lovable characters and everything about lead male, Noah Centineo. Finally, on September 7th, Netflix released yet another teen movie: “Sierra Burgess is a Loser.”

Before the movie even began, I was excited. The lead, Sierra, is played by Shannon Purser, a personal favorite of mine, so it was already off to a great start. Also, this movie features Noah Centineo, who has proven himself as an exceptional actor.

The trailer, however, made me believe this was going to be a sweet, wholesome movie. It is about a girl who meets a boy through a wrong number text and begins talking to him, even though he believes she is someone else. She does not want him to see her though, because she is not conventionally beautiful according to high school standards. So, she enlists the help of the beautiful, but mean cheerleader, Veronica. Finally, he realizes who Sierra really is, but what happens next is left unsaid; all in the trailer.

Instead, I was blindsided by a movie full of deceit and everything going just a little too far.

Now, I already knew the whole catfishing aspect was going to be a little odd, but I was willing to look past it and just enjoy the movie. However, once I watched it, the cute and relatable moments were most definitely outweighed with cringing, painful ones. More than once, I questioned whether they should have used certain words or phrases to demean one another. There were more than enough controversial slurs from the mean girls, which got to be a bit much for me. When Sierra pretended to be deaf to get out of talking to Jamey, Noah’s character, I knew this movie was really getting out of hand. Finally, when it ended with Jamey and Sierra being together, that really pushed me over the edge. When would that happen, ever?

I know it was just a romantic comedy made for teenagers, so I shouldn’t have expected much. Unfortunately, I did and was disappointed. I realized during the credits that maybe Sierra Burgess really is the loser. Come on.

Thankfully, Netflix will most likely not be releasing another one of these teen films anytime soon.