Within all of the Noah Centineo obsessions that have cropped up over the past few months, I thought that I would round out my Centineo experience by seeing his most recent movie The Perfect Date. It was only an hour and a half and I had no work to do (or work I wanted to do, rather), so I figured I might as well try it out. The first time I tried (yes, tried) to watch it I turned it off within the first 20 minutes. 

I was immediately bored by the perfect, handsome boy with big dreams of going to an Ivy League and an angsty girl who cannot stand the life of a rich kid. A day or so later I decided to try it again, finding myself in the same situation as before and wanting to indulge myself in a show that didn’t require much attention.

The Perfect Date was an hour and a half of cheesy teenage drama that seemed to me like a cheap knockoff of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Brooks Rattigan (Noah Centineo) has a dream of getting into Yale and figuring out his life while Celia Lieberman (Laura Marano) wants nothing more than to escape her life of privilege and wealth and march to the beat of her own drum. Nothing about either of these characters were compelling because I have seen these two people fall in loves hundreds of times before in countless other movies. So, suffice it to say that this movie was not a groundbreaking film that introduced any new concepts into the world of media. 

In order to fund his time at Yale, assuming he gets in, Brooks and his best friend Murph (Odiseas Goergiadis) create an app that allows girls to essentially rent Brooks out for the night for any kind of date. First, I’m not sure how much Brooks was charging, but it seemed a bit advantageous for him to assume that going on fake dates with girls would somehow fund four years at a private university. I also didn’t really find the app that endearing or interesting, even during the handful of cuts with Brooks dressing as a cowboy, a tennis pro and an art connoisseur. 

Circling back to the money component, despite being from a poor part of Connecticut and living with a single father who makes very little money, Brooks seemed to have plenty of extra cash to spend on dozens of themed outfits while still raking in money for Yale. In addition to the movie being unrealistic, the characters were simply boring. 

Celia suffers from the classic ailment of being too cool for her privileged lifestyle and interested in a world outside of her expensive neighborhood. Outside of her desire to escape and her quick wit, nothing about Celia is likeable or interesting. Likewise, the only reasons Brooks wants to attend Yale is because, as he claims, a public university will not be beneficial enough for him. Even Elle Woods had a more compelling reason to head to Harvard in Legally Blonde. 

Overall, it sounds like I absolutely hated my experience with this movie, and while I do not plan on watching it again, I can totally understand why thousands of young teenage girls would be flocking to see anything with Noah Centineo in it (after all he is pretty cute). However, with blasé characters and an unrealistic plot, I would not suggest The Perfect Date as a movie to watch in your free time. If I had to make a decision, I would say that Centineo’s character Brooks was my least favorite that I have seen so far because he lacks a genuine personality and seems very shallow.