2.1/5.0
Netflix’s Stranger Things’ Shannon Purser (Okay but really, what about Barb?) features in a high-school’s very own tale of Catfish. While its attempts to portray the idea of self-awareness and confidence on-screen it falls flat throughout the plot. A rom-com with respectable intentions to boost young-adults self-esteem to stay true to themselves. In spite of their efforts, the original theme gets lost within the storyline. A failed Netflix Original, in comparison to earlier this summer’s To All the Boys I Loved Before (2018).
Sierra Burgess is a young senior in high-school tackling the same issues that most seniors do, ACT/SAT exams, college applications, and a struggle to find oneself before venturing off into the world. Sierra Burgess is not exactly what’d you call confident, but it’d be wrong to categorize her as insecure, rather she takes pride in who she is… a loser. On the opposite side of the popularity hierarchy stands head cheerleader Veronica. Veronica completely infatuated with her older college boyfriend wouldn’t look twice at Jamey, football player to their school’s rival. In efforts to prank Sierra, she gives Jamey Sierra’s phone number in place of hers. Jamey seizes his opportunity and begins to text to Sierra under the impression that it’s Veronica. Sierra can’t help but to keep the facade going with extreme stunts to continue to deceive Jamey.
Spoilers Below
Sierra Burgess is a Loser takes catfishing to an immoral extreme. I suppose the whole concept of catfishing is that one is too insecure to present themselves as who they truly are, but that doesn’t fit quite right into this rom-com. Sierra is actually quite intimidating because, she feels so confident in her skin and unashamed of who she truly is, band geek and teacher’s pet included. We frequently observe cases in which Sierra proves her stable sureness of herself from standing up to Veronica in the bathroom or asking her English teacher to let her fight her own fights. So where did this insecurity stem from when Jamey comes into play?
As a Netflix Original, with its most recent young adult rom-com To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before comes my high expectations. Okay to recap a little, when I first watched TATBILB I was coming home from an overnight shift at work and I wanted to relax and watching something not-too-serious and non-horror, so naturally scrolling through Netflix’s “Recently Added” I came across the film. I was not expecting to enjoy the film nearly as much as I did, my thoughts going into it were, “I feel like watching a bad rom-com and this will do.” Let me just say it proved me wrong! I still can’t tell who I love more Lara-Jean or Peter. But enough about TATBILB, I’m taking the spotlight away from Sierra Burgess, but that’s exactly what TATBILB did. Perhaps if I hadn’t watched TATBILB prior to watching Sierra Burgess, I might have enjoyed it more and it would’ve satisfied my “I feel like watching a bad rom-com” feeling. Sierra Burgess was completely a disappointment for me. It was hardly romantic and more-so cringey.
Okay I can see where this film was heading towards with the whole, “girls outside the norm” are worthy of love concept, except it was completely wasted. When Sierra turns to her best friend Dan for advice concerning catfishing Jamey, he’s perplexed as to who Sierra may be becoming. While Sierra holds up a magazine with a celebrity modeling she asks Dan, “Is this what guys are really into?” This was the only moment where I honestly felt that shit. Sadly that point didn’t get too far after that scene for me. Sierra was initially more confident at the beginning of the film than when she began to talk to Jamey. Which to me personally was almost offensive because, why do girls feel their self-esteem is based off the opinion of their crush? I get it, it was supposed to be about how Jamey fell for a personality since their relationship mainly existed through text messages, but yet in the end people are going to judge a book by its cover. Most self-confidence in relationships are portrayed as being able to be independent while single, which is what Sierra seemed to be. But her confidence plummeted and thus began the self-doubt. This plot could’ve gone a long way, but turned into a failed message.
The whole Cryano skit is a bit overplayed and came off as almost borderline psychotic. I truthfully don't even want to touch base on Sierra's fake "I'm deaf" skit because it made me so uncomfortable and found it offending. But either way, Sierra delves deeper and deeper into playing Veronica and in turn betraying Jamey. Realistically no one really ends up with the catfish just because, “you are exactly my type.” The reason this film earned an extra star was because of Veronica and Sierra's oddly newfound friendship, even though they were just immorally digging a deeper hole against Jamey. In the end Veronica realizes her boyfriend is essentially trash and begins to discover her feelings for Jamey. Veronica brushes it off because, suddenly her ethics are important and she can’t betray Sierra even through she’s hurting Jamey in the giant scheme of catfishing him. Weird. Either way the end of the film became predictable, Sierra stoops down to a new level, exposing Veronica and so Veronica outs Sierra. So the two are now against each other and here we are yet again, two girls fighting over a guy. But we all know they’ll forgive her and everyone will end up happy. That ending is so predictable it could honestly follow a recipe.