Paige gets help from her best friends ( Tyler Alvarez and Teala Dunn), who happen to be passionately in love AND running against each other for student body president. ( Michelle Buteau brings a hilariously deadpan delivery to her handful of scenes as the school principal.) The point is the finger-pointing and running around that Blanchard’s Paige must do to prove she’s not King Pun-even though she’s the prime suspect as a talented artist herself-and avoid suspension. You’ll be able to figure it out pretty easily. At its core, this is a mystery similar to uncovering who’s truly the scandal-sheet scribe Lady Whistledown on “Bridgerton.” At least it is to the student body of Miller High School, who regularly arrive for class and find the lockers, walls and bathroom stalls tagged with the whimsical, colorful work of an artist who favors wordplay and goes by the name King Pun.
The former Disney performers assert themselves confidently with more mature material while still bringing all that well-honed comic timing Blanchard made her name on the TV series “Girl Meets World,” and Cravalho became a global phenomenon at 16 as the star of “ Moana.” The two have an easy, sparky chemistry that’s obvious to everyone but their characters, and watching them steadily acknowledge their feelings for each other is, of course, the film’s joy.īut the road to that realization is paved with snappy dialogue and playful, well-paced situations.
It just isn’t that big of a deal to this generation-or at least, it shouldn’t be, “Crush” is saying.Īnd that kind of authenticity springs from the fact that so many of the people involved both in front of and behind the camera identify as queer themselves, including the director, writers, and stars Rowan Blanchard and Auli’i Cravalho. The matter-of-fact way they discuss romance in the script from Kirsten King and Casey Rackham is reflective of evolving mores and identities. These teens are here, they’re queer, get used to it, to borrow a decades-old rallying cry.
This is a movie about gay characters in which there is no hiding in the closet, no anxiety over coming out, no fear of condemnation from parents or ignorant classmates. The quirky outsider pines secretly for the most popular kid, the students have a zippy way with words that suggests a wisdom beyond their years, and everyone-regardless of their status on the social hierarchy-gets wasted at the kind of mansion rager that probably never occurred in your own youth.īut despite the familiar settings and tropes in director Sammi Cohen’s debut feature film, “Crush” feels refreshingly contemporary. Enjoy these picks all year-round.The high school rom-com “ Crush” plays like a queer version of a John Hughes movie. And remember-even when Pride Month ends, there is still a wealth of LGBTQ cinema to explore. In an effort to celebrate these films, the team at Men's Health has put together a list of iconic LGBTQ movies currently available for streaming on major platforms, including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. The racial identities of queer characters have changed, too-look at Moonlight, which won multiple Academy awards and became the first film in history with an all-Black cast to win Best Picture. So while you may not be able to celebrate outside, now is the perfect time to catch up iconic queer film and television, a glimpse into the stories of LGBTQ characters falling in love, coming to terms with their sexual identity or simple celebrating what it means to be queer in this day and age, be it fictional or based on real moments in history.Īnd for the past half-century, LGBTQ media has made major strides, ranging from the 1985 love story, Desert Hearts, to the recent critical success of The Portrait of a Lady On Fire. Unfortunately, a pandemic has forced everyone indoors, leaving minimal options for community members to display their colors or for allies to show support. It's Pride Month, and under usual conditions, this would be a time to celebrate for the LGBTQ community, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's recent ruling regarding LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace.