Evo

The ratings are high for no reason and my only explanations are that 1) non-Asian viewers are only praising it for its "representation" and 2) gay Asians are so deprived of genuinely good representative media. In fact, the cast--except for Ellie and father--and even the background actors are all white and the Latina lead is white-passing/WHITE. I understand that she lives in the middle of nowhere, but really? Is it great that Ellie is gay?? Yes! This fact and the plot is fantastic in theory BUT overall, it was poorly executed. I cannot state this enough--this movie was incredibly bad. The viewers are not given the space to care about the main characters and they are extremely one dimensional. Their backgrounds and motivations are spoken rather than shown (The male lead literally does a spiel on his major life motivations). They are forgettable. There is no reason to be invested in any of their relationships or actions and it feels like they are just doing things because it is in the script. The focus on philosophy and art is very strange and comes off as extremely pretentious--really? Sartre??--Real teenagers do not speak like this. The references sound like an old white man trying to create "an intellectual teenager." Real teenagers can be intellectual without being parodies. Moreover, as a Chinese-American, the Chinese "representation" is horribly inadequate. The father's English is fluent and to keep pushing that it is not is a disservice to English-speaking Chinese immigrants and people everywhere! Additionally, this is nitpicky but is indicative of a bigger issue: Yakult was already brought up in To All The Boys--it is not the only Asian drink! I am sick and tired of these cliches and these lackluster movies that are pushed to feed the fake-woke white public over Real Chinese and Asian-American audiences. Do better. We deserve better.