Tall Girl’s familiar teen love story fails to reach new heights

Unfortunately, the high school stuff doesn’t fare as well. The movie feels like a retro throwback—and not in a fun way. From a one-note mean girl stereotype to a complete disinterest in how social media shapes the lives of teens, Sam Wolfson’s lackluster script fails to bring anything new or timely to the teen rom-com table. This is a film where teenagers refer to texts as “text messages” and happily answer phone calls from unknown numbers. The specificity of Jodi’s story eventually gives way to generalized platitudes about the importance of confidence and self-acceptance—all delivered via a big speech at a high-stakes high school event, which is the sort of thing that already felt a bit overdone back when Mean Girls did it in 2004.

Indeed, more than anything, Tall Girl feels like a rehash of one of the films that set the teen movie template to begin with, John Hughes’ Pretty In Pink. Jodi’s tallness stands in for Andie’s working class alienation. In place of rich dreamboy Blane, there’s Stig (Luke Eisner), a hunky Swedish exchange student who’s not only taller than Jodi, but comes from a country where tall women are the norm. And in place of Duckie there’s Jack Dunkleman (American Vandal’s Griffin Gluck), a nerdy guy who’s been openly crushing on his best friend since elementary school. Yet this 2019 film somehow does an even worse job than that 1986 one of recognizing the desperation and occasional creepiness of a possessive teenager like Duckie/Dunkleman (the name similarity feels like a direct hat tip). Tall Girl seems to think that lampshading a lazy cliché makes it okay to indulge in it. As a result, there are several things about Dunkleman that feel ill-considered, which is also a problem with Jodi’s other bestie Fareeda (Anjelika Washington), an almost pathologically overly supportive sounding board.

With a cast of underutilized scene-stealers and an appreciably unique New Orleans setting, Tall Girl might’ve made a better TV show than a movie. There’s potential in its premise, but the story (and the comedy) need more space to grow and develop a rhythm. Then again, these Netflix rom-coms tend to blur the already blurry distinctions between TV and film. Indeed, Netflix is billing Tall Girl as Stewart’s first feature, even though she previously wrote and directed the hugely successful 2015 Lifetime original film With This Ring, which starred big names like Regina Hall, Jill Scott and Eve. At this point, it’s basically impossible to define what separates a movie from a TV movie. Regardless, like a lot of these Netflix rom-coms, Tall Girl is seemingly designed to be viewed with the same casualness with which people binge-watch their favorite sitcoms.

Yet there’s a fine line between “comfort food” and “lazy storytelling,” and Tall Girl has too much of the latter and not enough of the former. The film’s most original idea is that when Jodi gets a makeover, she’s not required to trade in her hoodies and sweatpants for girly dresses and skirts. Instead, her style update includes a killer turquoise suit. Unfortunately, that sort of originality is too few and far between in a film that proselytizes about the importance of being yourself, but fails to take any risks itself.