Forever Out of My League// Review #17

Well, we finally made it. We finally made it to the finish line of the Out of my League trilogy. And let me tell you, it was a journey to get here. 

Forever Out of My League is the third and final installment in the Italian Out of My League franchise, recently released on Netflix in the US in April of this year.

For those of you who don’t know or haven't been keeping up with the story of the Out of My League trilogy, allow me to clue you in. This trilogy follows Marta and her friends as they attempt to battle Marta’s cystic fibrosis and their various romantic entanglements. For more context on the series and my full reviews of Out of My League and Still Out of My League, you can click the posters below:

Out of My League (2020)

Still Out of My League (2021)

(Yes, in case you were wondering, they did change the romantic leads of these films midway through the trilogy, but if you’re going to get hung up on details like that, then this trilogy isn’t for you.)

For now, we’re just going to plow on, assuming that you’re up to speed about the nature of these characters’ lives. 

(Like the other two films before this, I watched the dubbed version of Forever Out of My League with the English voice actors and not the original Italian version with subtitles. However, the voice performances and the English translation have nothing to do with my review, and they weren't taken into consideration about my thoughts on the film when writing this post.)

Let us discuss the nature of this third and final film in the trilogy, and decide if it was worth any of the praise and/or criticism I gave the first two. 

Let’s begin: (SPOILERS, I GUESS)

Category 1: Plot- D+

Based on my experience with the second movie, I was expecting this movie to be bad, and so when it turned out to be bland it was both a disappointment and a relief.

However, like Still Out of My League, there are multiple plot lines in this movie, but no overarching, connecting plot. I suppose it could be argued that the main plot is Marta's recovery from cystic fibrosis, because that does seem to have a lot more screen time in this movie, but I would still argue that this is still only one of many subplots in this movie.

Let's get into it.

Now, because this film has three main characters (Marta, Federica, and Jacopo) you would think that they would all have something equally important to do. However, as you can probably guess, most of the subplots in this movie are completely unnecessary and borderline useless.

Again, like Still Out of My League, Forever Out of My League has an A, B, C, and D plot line. Again, the A and C plot lines are related to one another, the B plot line is completely out of left field, and the D plot line could be cut from the movie entirely, and no one would notice.

To break all of them down- here we go: 

The A plot follows Marta after she had lung transplant surgery to cure her cystic fibrosis. In the hospital, she sees Gabriele, and they get back together. After her recovery, she moves out of her apartment with Frederica and Jacopo to move in with Gabriele. She seems mostly okay, but is secretly worried that her cystic fibrosis is coming back. The related C plot follows Gabriele, as he attempts to locate Marta’s grandmother so that they can reconcile their relationship just in case something happens to Marta. Apparently, Marta and her grandmother did not get along at all, and Marta strongly dislikes her grandmother (who was never discussed prior to this film), to the point where she often tells people that she has no living family.

The random B plot in this film follows Jacopo and Frederica (who immediately quits her job at the beginning of this movie, thus making the entire job plot line of the second film more jarring and unnecessary in the context of this trilogy, but I digress). They need to rent out Marta’s room while she’s living with Gabriele in order to make rent, however, they end up renting out the room to a single mother with a baby. Unfortunately, one day the mother leaves the baby unattended in the apartment for several days with a note asking them to care for her. Thus, the unlikely pair are stuck with a baby that they have to care for until the mother returns. 

The final official plot of this movie has to deal with the completely unnecessary characters, Giacomo and Rebecca. Rebecca, if you remember from the second film, was Frederica’s famous cousin who was dating a loser. Well, in this move they’re still dating, and they go through some truly heinous relationship shit that really shouldn’t be in this movie.

Oh, there is also a romantic subplot featuring Jacopo and Marta’s doctor, but no one has time for how pointless all that is.

Surprisingly, despite all of the plot points, this film is stitched together better than the previous movie in this series. That said, this movie was also more boring than Still Out of My League. Whereas the plots from the last movie were messy and bad, these plots are just… kind of slow. The most interesting drama that took place in this film was between the two characters who have the least to do in it (Rebecca & Giacomo).

Again, Rebecca and Giacomo don't need to be in this movie at all, but they're still around, because apparently this movie cares so much about continuity with the other films (*rolls eyes*). 

I'll touch on this series' problematic continuity later, but for now, let's get into what actually worked about this movie.

Category 2: Themes- B-

I’ll give this movie props for having a theme and sticking to it. The first movie had a theme of “found family” with the three main characters referring to each other as their family. Notably in the first film Marta mentions that her parents are both dead and that Frederica and Jacopo are her family and have been since they were children.

The second movie veers away from this theming (instead choosing to girlboss too close to the sun with Frederica’s whole #metoo moment), but it has returned for this final installment.

In this film, Marta is forced confront the fact that she actually does have family that is still alive, her wicked old grandmother who she doesn’t speak to. She chooses not to tell her about any of her surgeries or medical problems, and instead relies on her best friends- her chosen family- to the point of becoming co-dependent on them.

This causes Marta to move out of her apartment with Jacopo and Frederica and move in with Gabriele instead so as to not worry them if she were to get sick again. However, of course they’re worried about her, and they remain like a chosen family, (SPOILER) even when Marta gets sick once more and goes back into the hospital.

(SPOILER, AGAIN) Even when Marta’s grandmother visits her in the hospital at the end of the movie, the film reinforces the theme of found family, because Marta’s grandmother admitted to not being a good parent or grandparent. 

Honestly, I believe that the overall theme of this film was probably the strongest aspect of the entire movie, and it ties the series up with a nice little bow.

Category 3: Cinematography- C

With each movie in this series the cinematography gets less and less impressive. 

The cinematography in this movie isn’t bad per say, it’s just not special. There is nothing about Forever Out of My League that makes it stand out visually from any other high-budget TV soap or mid-budget Netflix movie. Like everything else in this film, I was left feeling bored by how flat everything looked and felt. The colors were not warm and overly saturated like they were in the first two movies. In fact, there was no visual flair at all in this film. 

It was just... a movie.

This is fine, but not what I came into this experience hoping for. I suppose a normal looking film is better than a visually horrible one, but I just wished that this movie was more visually memorable, especially because the first two movies had more going for them in this category.

Category 4: Characters- C-

Unlike the previous movie, I was mostly okay with the characters in this film (sparing a couple of them, which we’ll get to in a moment). Marta and her grandmother’s dynamic, while not previously discussed in any of the other movies, surprisingly worked for me, and I wasn’t as upset at Marta for keeping secrets from people like I was in the previous movie. Everything she did seemed logical and understandable to a point.

As I mentioned before, Jacopo was briefly dating Marta’s doctor. It didn’t really work out, though, and so I don’t have much to say about them other than I’m glad Jacopo was dating someone who actually wanted to be with him unlike the previous movie. He was a much better friend to Marta in this movie, although I’m still not Jacopo's biggest fan because he seemed a little clingy, and his codependence between Marta and Frederica was likely the reason why the doctor broke up with him.

Surprisingly, Federica has been nothing but lovely throughout all of these movies. She’s been mostly unproblematic the entire time, and frankly she was a saint in this film for taking care of someone else’s baby with no indication of if or when the mother was going to return. Overall, 10/10 for Frederica. No notes.

…Then there’s Gabriele. (*sigh*)

I know I went off on him in my review of the last movie, but he’s actually a little less problematic in this film, albeit the same amount of anxious-obsessive, if you ask me.

Gabriele’s entire plot in this film revolves around him trying to make contact with Marta’s grandmother so that she knows Marta is sick and just had a lung transplant. This seems wholesome at first, considering that at the beginning of this film, he and Marta make up after the whole debacle with Tommaso (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to read the Still Out of My League review first). It seems like he is trying to make things right, and connect Marta to her last living relative. Only, Marta expressly tells him that she wants nothing to do with her mean old grandmother, and YET HE KEEPS TRYING TO REACH OUT TO HER FOR MARTA. 

I understand that his intentions were pure in this film compared to the last one, but I just took this as proof that Gabriele doesn’t listen, and he has no concept of boundaries. Marta directly tells him that she doesn’t want anything to do with her grandmother due to previous abuse, and then Gabriele has to stick his nose into her family business to repair something that neither of them really wanted repaired. His anxious-obsessive personality wreaks of “I know what’s best for you,” and I didn’t like it.

Finally, there’s Rebecca and Giacomo. (*rolls eyes*)

Again, Rebecca and Giacomo are barely in this movie. They’re in the film for a combined total of about 10 minutes, but BOY do they leave an impact. If I didn’t feel anything about their cliche relationship before this film, I definitely have opinions now, and my opinion is that Giacomo is a saint, and Rebecca is the second worst character in this entire series (the first is Gabriele, obviously).

I say that Rebecca is the second worst person in this entire series because even though she’s dating Giacomo and claims to love him, the moment she sees him gain a shred of confidence or respect in public with other people, she feels threatened. This would be okay, if she chose to talk to him about her feelings and insecurities in their relationship. But you already know she didn’t do that, right? So, what does she do instead?

I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with shmublic humiliation.

Rebecca wanted so badly to remain the hot popular one in their relationship that she was determined to pull her boyfriend down a peg FOR LITERALLY NO REASON. So, she posts a humiliating video of Giacomo peeing himself in fear after being threatened at a party before they were dating. Which is a vile and awful thing to do to someone you aren’t dating, let alone someone you introduced to your parents.

Eventually she fesses up to posting the video of him (after it went semi-viral) and like a saint, Giacomo forgives her, accepts her apology, and resumes dating her. I was and remain FLOORED by this. He knew his girlfriend was a shit bag and he just accepted her for the shit bag she was. 

Couldn’t be me. (And again, their plot line has nothing- and I mean NOTHING- to do with Marta or even Frederica for that matter, so why are they in this movie?)

My summary of the characters is that Giacomo and Frederica are basically saints, while everyone else in this series is varying degrees of terrible.

Category 5: Pacing- C-

I’m not gonna lie, this movie was rough to get through. And it wasn’t because it was messy and cliche like the previous one, or campy and dramatic like the first one, but because this movie was just…boring. 

A large portion of this movie takes place in the hospital with Marta coming in and out of examination and surgery, and it kind of makes this movie drag on. To top it off, none of the plots feature any exciting drama. Everything that happens is grounded in reality and so there are a lot of scenes where not much is happening or the characters are just hanging out with no underlying conflict.

(SPOILER) It’s not until about an hour into the movie that something finally starts to happen. Marta breaks into a coughing fit and begins to panic about her CF returning, even though she’s already had a lung transplant. This is when I was the most engaged, because then it seemed like something was going to happen. At that point, either Marta was going to be fine, or she was going to die. This moment added stakes for me, so I felt like I wasn’t watching such a dry movie.

I will admit, there are some good moments towards the end of the movie, like the conversation that Marta has with her grandmother. It’s actually surprisingly poignant, and it completes Gabriele’s story arc for this movie. There is also another really good scene at the end of the film in which all of the characters are gathered at the hospital, thinking that Marta is going to die. (SPOILER) They play this scene really seriously as if Marta has already passed away, only to reveal that she’s going to live and everything is fine. Everyone is elated, and then the movie ends.

Overall, I think that the best aspect of the pacing is that Forever Out of My League truly had an ending, and it wasn’t just a teaser for another movie like the second one was.

This movie truly was the end of an era, and I'm grateful for that.

Category 6: Continuity- D

The one thing I can say about the Out of My League franchise is that it's a little all over the place. Over the course of three movies, there've been two romantic leads, multiple subplots that went nowhere, a random family member appearing in the third film, and a battle with cystic fibrosis that is only mentioned in these movies for the sake of plot convenience. 

I hate to say it, but as soon as the films wrote off Marta's first love interest, Arturo, they kind of destroyed the continuity of the Out of My League universe. Because of that, the second movie, Still Out of My League, suffers from having a new romantic lead with new problems. It's pretty clear that the original Out of My League was meant to be a standalone film, as it ends with the two main characters, Arturo and Marta, literally getting married. However, I'm sure the reception to the original film was positive enough to warrant two additional films, whether or not the story was strong enough to fill out two more movies.

I stand by the opinion that Arturo shouldn't have been replaced in the second and third movies, but I'm sure the actor (Giuseppe Maggio) had better opportunities, or perhaps a conflicting schedule. He was also in the Italian Netflix movie, Four to Dinner (which I haven't seen) that premiered right around the time Still Out of My League launched on Netflix in the U.S. Based on the direction that Out of My League movies went after his exit, I'm not sure I blame him for not being involved in the later projects.

However, ignoring the ending of the first movie and presuming that Arturo and Marta truly did break up as the second movie suggests, it's incredibly clear to me that Forever Out of My League should’ve been the second and final movie in this franchise. Forever Out of My League feels like a more natural continuation of Federica and Jacopo's B plot from Out of My League, and it helps to build on the character development for Marta and her cystic fibrosis more than the actual sequel (which mostly forgets she has it until the end of the film when she's ready for a transplant). In my opinion, if you were to ask me which of these movies are canon, I would say Still Out of My League never happened and doesn't exist, and Forever Out of My League is the true sequel.

All conversations with me about this trilogy will henceforth be exactly this: "The Out of My League trilogy? What trilogy? You mean that cute duology with the sequel that only kind of relates to the first movie? Oh yeah! It's weird that they replaced the main guy, but it's still fine, I guess..."

Overall, watching this series has been interesting. Something I appreciated about the end of this film was the inclusion of the actors' audition tapes for the roles of Marta, Federica, and Jacopo, especially since they’ve been the core of this series since the beginning. It was a nice way to send them off and to acknowledge (and confirm) that this is the end of the line for the Out of My League franchise. 

Honestly, I’m kind of just glad it’s over.

This trilogy kind of feels like if The Kissing Booth trilogy and the To All the Boys trilogy had an Italian baby. I would be inclined to say that the baby favors To All the Boys more, but there are definitely some Kissing Booth-esque moments in Still Out of My League that are hard to overlook.

In any event, I'm glad I was able to write about all three of these films on this blog. This was the first trilogy that I've ever reviewed, and frankly, it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

Forever Out of My League is not the worst movie in the Out of My League franchise, but it was perhaps the most boring. For that, this movie will receive a D+, for at least managing to be more competent than the (non-existent) sequel. 

If nothing else, these movies have taught me that some foreign language films can definitely be worth watching (Out of My League), while some others, who will remain nameless (*cough* Still Out of My League *cough* Forever Out of My League *cough*), are not. I hope to watch more foreign language films in the future, and rant/rave all about them here with you.

Thank you for reading. I hope you're doing well.

If you're interested in seeing next month's review post earlier than it posts here (I post reviews on Patreon up to 3 months in advance before they go live here), then you can subscribe to my Patreon linked above. Subscribing to my Patreon also allows you to gain access to some of my unreleased writing. If you would prefer to make a one-time donation instead, my Ko-Fi is linked below as well.

Thanks! Stay safe out there, everyone.

Still Out of My League // Review #15

Happy New Year everybody! 

I decided to take off for the month of January, and so I hope you all had a great start to 2022.

Now it’s officially that time of year again, when everyone is expected to pair off with the one they love to watch romantic movies and snuggle on the couch. With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, it’s only expected that I would review a rom-com and share my thoughts on it with you all. As a single person myself, I too enjoy a good romantic comedy. It’s always nice to fantasize about being swept off my feet by a handsome stranger after a delightful meet-cute. So, when I saw that Netflix released a sequel to a comfort film of mine, Out of My League, I definitely wanted to check it out.

Still Out of My League is an Italian romantic comedy that is the direct sequel to the 2020 movie, Out of My League, in which Marta, a girl with cystic fibrosis, decides to begin dating Arturo, the most popular boy in town, despite knowing that she will likely die before their relationship can flourish.

Now, despite its many flaws, I liked Out of My League because of the beautiful cinematography and the delightful brevity of the film. While Still Out of My League tried to recreate the same feeling as the first movie, the sequel somehow felt like a cheap imitation of the original. By the time this film was over, I couldn’t help but feel like I had sat through an overlong episode of an Italian soap opera.

(Before we get into it, I just want it noted that just like the original movie, I watched this film with the British voice actors dubbing over the original Italian actors. This may have also contributed to my less than stellar feelings about this film, but I'm going to stick to core elements of why this movie just didn't work for me as a whole instead of focusing on the translation and voice acting.) 

Let me explain: (SPOILERS, I GUESS)

Category 1: Plot -D

This movie has no plot, essentially. It’s a series of subplots that follow all of our favorite characters from the original, sparing Arturo, who the characters keep bringing up for some reason. (They bring up Arturo so much throughout the course of this film that I kept waiting for a cameo from him, but no, he never showed.)

There is an A, B, C, and even D plot to this movie. The A and C plots are connected, while the B plot has its own 20–30-minute arc, and the D plot is so unimportant to the movie that I practically forgot about it entirely.

The A plot follows Marta as she is in a long-distance relationship with her new boyfriend, Gabriele. We discover at the beginning of this movie that Marta and Arturo broke up at the end of the first film (which kind of breaks the continuity of the first movie because Marta and Arturo are shown getting married at the end of it, but whatever), and so now she is with Gabriele, who is an artist. Gabriele was recently hired to work on a movie in France, even though he and Marta have been dating for a few months. This disappoints Marta, of course, but she ultimately decides that she can do a long-distance relationship for him. The main story is about how Marta and Gabriele try to make this work, while also juggling the challenges that come with her cystic fibrosis.

The C plot (we'll get to the B plot later) follows Jacopo and his search for romance. In this movie, Jacopo inexplicably falls in love with a delivery boy, Tomasso (who is admittedly very hot), who works in Marta, Federica, and Jacopo's favorite soup place. The only problem is, Jacopo can't tell if Tommaso is interested in him, or even if Tommaso is gay. So instead of just asking Tommaso about what he is interested in (like a normal person), Jacopo convinces Marta to go out with Tommaso to discover the truth about his sexual orientation.

Which is... messy, to say the least. But we'll dive more into that later.

The D plot is completely forgettable, and absolutely unnecessary. I'm not even sure why it was included in the final cut of the film. This plot follows Federica's cousin, Rebecca (who was not introduced in the first film, nor was she important in this one). Rebecca is a social media star with a large following, who inexplicably falls in love with a dorky character named Giacomo. They begin a secret relationship. This plot point goes nowhere and is irrelevant to the main characters in this movie. Predictably, in the end, Rebecca learns to not be ashamed of Giacomo and to be proud of dating him, even if he is a loser. 

Yada, yada, we've seen it before.

Despite the lack of a central connecting plot, I think the thing that bothers me most about this film is all of the mental gymnastics that it wants you to go through. For example, if insta-love was the crux of the first movie, the miscommunication trope is the crux of this one. SO MANY conflicts in this film would have been resolved with just ONE conversation, which made this movie frustrating to watch.

Literally the plot of Still Out of My League (2021)

The long and short of it is that this movie was a mess. It started out cute enough, but then took a drastic turn, thanks in no small part to the characters.

Category 2: Characters- D

If Arturo from Out of My League had practically no personality, then Gabriele from Still Out of My League had a bit of an anxious-obsessive one. From the beginning of the movie and throughout the film, it is hinted at that Gabriele is feeling threatened by the fact that Marta used to date Arturo, someone who was rich and (arguably) “out of her league” (Like the title of the movie!). This is clear when Gabriele initially refused a big job opportunity in France because he wanted to resume dating Marta, even though they had only been dating for three months. This insecurity in their relationship comes to a head when, scared that Marta is cheating on him with Tommaso, a guy that is (definitely) out of her league, Gabriele HACKS INTO HER SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS AND VIEWS HER PRIVATE MESSAGES. Still convinced that she’s cheating after that, he calls to confront her, and claims that he compromised her privacy because he knew that she was obsessed with dating upward, and she was insecure with the way she looked.

From that point on, I was DONE. Gabriele’s character immediately went from a cute love interest to a gaslighting asshole who was ruining the movie for me. I no longer cared for him as a character, and I didn’t blame Marta for breaking up with him afterwards.

After Gabriele’s character imploded, I found myself losing interest in the other characters, who were also terrible, but in their own way. Everyone essentially becomes a villain in this movie, despite their protagonist status. (Well, all except for Frederica, but we’ll get to her later.)

This movie felt like an example of brutal character assassination, as if the writers were trying to make all of the characters suck more than they had to.

For example, the worst character in this movie was surprisingly the best character in the original, Jacopo. In this film, Jacopo essentially forces Marta to go out with Tommaso alone in order to be his wingman, despite knowing that Marta had a serious boyfriend. This leads to complications not only with her relationship, but with Tommaso, who seems to be really into Marta. 

Marta certainly doesn't help the Jacopo situation, because she encourages this behavior instead of just telling Jacopo to ask out Tommaso and see for himself if he was interested.

Like I said- messy, messy, messy. 0/10 would recommend.

Category 3: Cinematography -B-

The one good thing I will say about this movie is that it's still pretty to look at. However, Still Out of My League isn't as aesthetically pleasing as the original. The cinematography for this movie somehow felt colder and more distant than the original film. I could tell within the first five minutes that the director was different, despite the films looking the same on a base level. The set design and the camera angles were basically identical from movie to movie, but somehow, I just wasn’t as captivated visually.

I know it sucks to compare a sequel to its original, but it’s almost impossible not to in this particular instance. Out of My League also has a lackluster story and questionable characters, but at least the visuals made up for it in the end by being warm and beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, the visuals in Still Out of My League weren't enough to save this movie from my ire and irritation. 

Category 4: Comedy- C+

Still Out of My League definitely leaned harder into the comedy aspect of this romantic comedy than the previous film. The sequel focuses less on Marta’s illness, but more on the hijinks that she gets into with Gabriele and her friends. The comedy in this movie is-annoyingly- derived from the miscommunications between the characters, as Marta and Gabriele try to tackle a long-distance relationship, and Tommaso flirts with both Marta and Jacopo.

We’re supposed to think it’s funny when Marta and Gabriele are on the brink of breaking up after an awkward video call. We’re not supposed to worry about how they should have just talked out their issues, and instead, we’re meant to laugh at the awkwardness of Marta being caught mid-strip tease.

It gets to be a little exhausting, to be honest. Again, most of the conflicts in this movie could've been resolved with a phone call, and so the comedy isn't all that funny when it seems like the characters are deliberately trying to hide information from their partners. 

Additionally, the entire D plot with Rebecca and Giacomo was basically played for laughs. The original film was so bare bones that it didn’t have time for unnecessary comedic plot lines such as a social media celebrity dating an uncool loser, but in the sequel, there’s PLENTY of time to fuck around. Even though these scenes are cute and funny in the moment, I still argue that they should have been cut from the movie entirely, as it adds nothing to an already empty film.

Category 5: Themes- C-

Remember how I mentioned we would come back to Frederica and the B plot later? Well, now’s that time. 

The B plot of Still Out of My League follows Marta’s friend Frederica as she is hired to work in tech security after being discovered by a recruiter at a poker game. Almost as soon as she is hired for this job, she is subjected to petty slights and bullying from her other female co-workers.

Frederica, determined to make things work, eventually makes peace with the women after bonding late one night. During this bonding experience, Frederica discovers that the women were bullying her to protect her from their male boss, who is a sexual predator. They wanted Frederica to quit so that she would not become a victim of the sexual harassment that has plagued the other women in the office. 

Since Frederica is a lesbian, she didn’t pick up on her boss’s behavior, but she’s more than willing to help the women take him down, so that it never happens to another woman in their company.

This entire segment of the movie felt out of place and a little ham-fisted, to be honest. I was surprised that so much of the movie’s run-time was dedicated to this issue, as Still Out of My League was a movie with relatively low stakes up until this concept was introduced.

I get the idea behind Frederica plot point, as it's very topical. Sexual harassment is incredibly prevalent in workplaces dominated by men (especially tech) in the real world. Thanks to the #metoo movement, there has been a public outcry of support for people who experience sexual assault. The movement has led to societal changes such as believing women who report sexual misconduct and bringing awareness to how toxic male-dominated work forces can be when left unchecked.

#girlboss

However, Frederica’s plot point kind of bothered me because I found it to be an example of #girlbossing, that wasn’t really exemplary of anything other than virtue signaling and allyship. The attempt was made, but it rang hollow in the end.

At the end of the movie, Frederica catches her boss on video trying to solicit her by offering her a promotion, and she displays this at a big company party for everyone to see what a terrible person he is. This inevitably leads to his boss- a woman- finding out about his behavior and firing him, claiming to “Get rid of the pig.”

While I appreciate a happy ending, this felt somehow incredibly unrealistic and also unhelpful to the larger conversation about sexual assault. In this movie, it is made to seem like by getting rid of one person, all issues of sexual assault are solved forever, which is simply not the case.

If the movie wanted to go for realism while also attempting to make a statement in a romantic comedy setting, then they should have followed the format used on The Sex Lives of College Girls.

The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max

The Sex Lives of College Girls is a romantic comedy-drama series that follows four girls during their first year of college. As you can probably deduce from the title, they each go through their own sexual misadventures, navigating romance and sex while also trying to get to class on time.

Bela, one of the characters on the show, is sexually harassed by a male student who she was hoping to impress for an on-campus internship opportunity. In The Sex Lives of College Girls, this is dealt with in a real and uncomfortable way, as she questions whether she was responsible for this, or if the harassment was worth her future career goals. However, despite this tough subject matter, the comedy of the show still shines through. The comedy in this circumstance not only makes the situation seem more real, but it keeps the vibe of the show consistent.

I'm definitely not saying that The Sex Lives of College Girls handled sexual assault situations perfectly, but I will say that I felt like it was handled with more care than it was in Still Out of My League. If nothing else, The Sex Lives of College Girls dared to critically examine how people would really react to sexual assault allegations, as opposed to just ousting the one singular person responsible for all of the terrible things going on.

In reality, whenever someone is accused of sexual harassment or rape, there is usually a lengthy investigation into the issue, resulting in mild or no consequences (*cough, cough* Brock Turner *cough, cough*).

While I can see where the writers of Still Out of My League were going with this plot point, I almost wish it had been left out of the movie entirely. 

Category 6: Pacing- D

Maybe it’s because I’m old and have the attention span of a squirrel, but this movie just seemed to drag on, and on, and on.

I mentioned previously that the original movie was a comfort film of mine because of how pretty and short it was. Still Out of My League was only about 20 minutes longer, but I still checked out at the 90-minute mark anyway. I didn’t really care what else was going on in the movie after that point, and so I was on my phone writing my Letterboxd review as I finished the rest of the film.

Speaking of the rest of the film, I should probably mention that this movie ends on a cliffhanger, which made the terrible pacing of the movie feel even more like a slap in the face. 

At the end of the movie, after Gabriele and Marta break up (SPOILER, I GUESS), Marta is rushed to the hospital for a lung transplant for her cystic fibrosis. Jacopo and Frederica call Gabriele to tell him about it, and he flies back to Italy to see Marta. But before the audience or Gabriele can find out if Marta survived her lung transplant surgery, we are treated with a delightfully evil “To Be Continued…” like we’re watching a daily soap opera. This means that there will likely be a third movie. 

Before you ask, yes, I will most likely be watching it when it releases on Netflix. 

In short, this movie is Bad (yes, that’s “bad” with a capital B to emphasize how bad it was). The first 45 minutes of this movie are surprisingly cute and charming, but somewhere along the way the movie grinds to a halt and ceases to be either of those things. 

I believe Tommy Ryan on Letterboxd said it best: "Everything good about the first film is stretched incredibly thin in the second, and haphazardly supported by bottom-of the barrel romcom [sic] fluff. This film's 'To be continued...' message at the end reads more like a threat to the viewer than an intriguing and suspenseful promise. But yes, I will be watching the third movie whenever they shit that out."

Still Out of My League wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever reviewed on this blog, but it was definitely one of the more disappointing ones, as I went into this film hoping to love it the way I loved the original. I guess I’ll just have to stick to that one instead. 

I’ll give Still Out of My League a D. If you're looking for an Italian romantic comedy to watch with your sweetheart this year, I recommend the original, Out of My League, on Netflix.

After watching the sequel, I've concluded the following: 

Have a Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I love and appreciate all of you. Stay safe out there.