A ChucksConnection Film Review

 

Mckenna Grace wears flloral print white and red high top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

Mason Thames wears black high top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

Sam Morelos wears white high top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

 

 

Regretting You

by Marcus Angulo

 

Clara wears these floral high top chucks throughout the film.

 

Clara helps Miller “expand” the city limits.

 

In 2007, 17-year-old Morgan Davidson (Williams) discovers that she is pregnant with her boyfriend, Chris Grant (Eastwood). She confides this to Jonah Sullivan (Franco), her sister Jenny’s (Fitzgerald) boyfriend and Chris’s best friend, who secretly has feelings for Morgan. Seventeen years later, Chris and Morgan are married and raising their teenage daughter, Clara (Grace). Jenny and Jonah have recently reunited after years apart, and have a newborn son, Elijah. While driving home on Morgan’s birthday, Clara encounters her classmate Miller Adams (Thames), the most popular boy in school. He’s moving the city limits sign so that the local pizza place will deliver to his ailing grandpa (Brown). She helps him, then drives him home. They learn that they both have aspirations of working in film and hope to go to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

 

That’s a fumbleruski.

 

Clara goes to Jenny for advice since she is the “cool” aunt, and Jenny says not to meddle in their relationship. She poignantly says you never want to be the other woman. Chris and Jenny then die in a traffic accident, after which Jonah and Morgan find out that they were having an affair. They confirm this by finding Chris’s car in a hotel parking lot, along with a hotel room filled with intimate stuff. Morgan decides she does not want Clara to know about the affair because she fears it would destroy her. This puts an incredible strain on their relationship as they are dealing with two different forms of grief, all while Clara develops her first true love with Miller.

 

Got any threes?

 

This film has a lot going on. There are two love stories, a mother-daughter story, a grieving story, and a story about getting out of a small town, all going on at the same time. This isn’t even including the B-plots that include Clara’s best friend, Miller’s grandpa, and Morgan finding herself. There is just simply way too much story happening in a sub two-hour runtime, and none of these elements have anytime to breathe or develop. Miller and Clara’s relationship starts and advances in just a few scenes, but they are given no time for their chemistry to build, and definitely don’t have enough time for you to feel that they are each other’s “true loves” by the end of the movie. It seems the movie realizes that there hasn’t been enough development in their relationship because the final scene involves Miller giving back story as to why he loves her and why that was the case before they even met and before the movie started. It’s a scene that feels tacked on so that the audience will feel like their love will last forever because it was meant to be. This is just one of the main plotlines, and it, along with the rest of the main plots, just crowd into each other’s space. Mckenna Grace and Mason Thames have incredible chemistry with each other, but they deserve a much better love story to show it.

 

 

Best Chucks Scene

 

That tension in the air before the big moment.

 

The best chucks scene in the film is arguably the most important scene for Miller and Clara. Clara wears white chucks with a floral pattern throughout most of the movie, which helps establish her girl-next-door vibe and look that the film is trying to portray. In this scene, she pairs them with a blue denim sundress that just drives home the look even more. While getting coffee, Clara is surprised by Miller, who joins her and lets her know that he broke up with his girlfriend. They then spend the day together moving the city limits sign and feeding his grandpa’s goats. They spend the end of the night talking in a parking lot before sharing their first kiss. The film is again at its best when Mckenna and Mason share scenes together, and that is the strength of this scene. It is also the scene where you most believe that these two characters would fall in love with each other.

 

And their lives will never be the same.