Is The Spectacular Now just another high school romance flick riddled with dry clichés? Though the movie trailer somewhat portrays The Spectacular Now as being just that, nothing could be further from the truth about this charming, heart wrenching film.

Sutter Keely, played by Miles Teller, is eccentric to most male characters in love movies; he genuinely cares about others while giving off the façade that he’s just a sarcastic, selfish high school senior. However, it is clear that it’s more complex than that as we see an internal conflict within Keely, evident by his constant drinking and lofty approach to his immediate future. Although we are inclined so deeply to want the best for Keely, we almost hate him for getting involved with Amiee Finicky, played by Shalience Woodley, an innocent, sensitive introvert who’s never had a boyfriend before she met him.

The movie does not simply ask the audience to accept the separate feelings Finicky and Keely have towards each other based off of cliché assumptions seen in most other films. No, this movie shows, so painstakingly accurate, the process of how Keely irresponsibly lures Finicky to him.

It’s quite clear that Finicky is in love with Keely and all of his self-destructive tendencies. Any person with a sense of empathy feels the heavy gravity of what this really means. The build up, meticulously paced to give us time to relate to these characters, has a climax that seizes your heart, if for a split second, and shoots it with a nail gun.

The Spectacular Now isn’t flashy, so if you go in expecting to be dazzled by the showings of an extremely attractive, abb-flexing male lead and a bodacious female counterpart, then you’ll be disappointed. However, this film is able to show characters that actually think and have an emotional status that is even more appealing to the audience.

It’s seemingly impossible to not simultaneously both hate and adore this film; and now I’m left with an ardent desire to go and experience it all again.