World, meet Noah Centineo. Netflix can now officially claim it is a star making enterprise in addition to the rest of the content it is producing. Centineo previously won the hearts of every high school girl in the Netflix Original To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. So what does Netflix do? Put him in a romcom called The Perfect Date to see if he can recapture the magic! Not only does Centineo recapture the magic of that earlier Netflix film, but he’s turned himself into a rom com all star in the process, so look out Julia Roberts: Noah’s coming for you.
The Perfect Date is a romcom script as written by the Netflix alogrithm. Centineo plays Brooks Rattigan, a poor kid trying desperately to get into Yale, his dream school. After earning a little money posing as a stand in date for Celia Lieberman (Laura Marano), Brooks gets his buddy Murph (Odiseas Georgiadis) to design an app called The Stand In, where Brooks can get paid to be whatever the date wants him to be. At the same time, Celia uses Brooks to help try to attract a boy she has a crush on.
Romcom’s don’t exactly need to be extremely complex stories, as by now, all of you have figured out where the story is probably going. All you need to make a romcom successfull is 2 killer leads, and for the audience to want them to end up together. Before I wax poetically about Noah Centineo, Laura Marano certainly carries her weight. Marano grew up in the Disney machine, but her acting chops display more talent than just her adorableness. During the obligatory break up scene, you can see the hurt on Marano’s face as Brooks hits Celia too close to the heart, arguably the best scene in the movie. She is every bit Centineo’s equal in all their rat-at-atting, sizzling with chemistry as Centineo trys to slay with his grin: between Marano and Centineo, you’ve got 2 killer heart melting smiles.
That being said, Netflix knows who the moneymaker is for The Perfect Date. Thankfully, Noah Centineo doesn’t disappoint. Ma dude throws himself into each loopy scenario with a combination of swagger and empathy, so each girl gets exactly what they want out of their interaction with him. Some of the dialogue he gets saddled with is so corny, schmaltzy and cheezy that you roll your eyes as its about to happen, but Centineo’s charm makes you forget all of that, delivering all of his lines with complete sincerity sucking you into The Perfect Date’s magic dragging you back to those corny, scmaltzy, cheesy conversations you had in high school.
A truly cynical person will probably not like The Perfect Date, but that’s not who this movie is for. If you’re at all willing to go along with this movie, it will find a way into that gooey part of your heart and just make you smile and maybe go “Aw” every once in a while. Laura Marano and especially Noah Centineo should pair up more often, turn themselves into the sizzle pair that every teenager will want to aspire to date. On second thought, Netflix and Disney with an unholy alliance? Terrifying…