“Sex Attraction” is a teen comedy that feels too much like a parody of the hit TV shows “Sex Education” and the critically acclaimed “Booksmart.” Sex Attraction might have been worth a watch if it hadn’t followed several extraordinary stories about complex young women discovering their sexuality.
Avery Hanson-White (Micah Abdullah) is an overachieving high school student who excels at what she does. This means she will avoid doing things she knows she won’t be good at, like normal teenage things. Her goal in life is to be successful, so when her long-distance boyfriend suggests they have sex, Avery gets an unexpected new goal. Luckily for her, a new STEM competition prompt became Avery’s way of discovering how to be good at sex. She decides to develop an app to help her become a master at it, and to do so she enlists the help of her old friend Larson (Jake Short) to serve as her test subject. Hilarity and awkwardness ensue.
Margaret Cho, Mika Abdullah and Rebecca Henderson
Sex Attraction is a film that struggles on two fronts: it adopts a new set of archetypes and conventions that have been better articulated in other projects, and it puts too much emphasis on making a film that’s quirky and stylized For a teen sex comedy, character development is left behind for the sake of its lead. The closest thing to sexual attraction is the two items mentioned earlier.One can imagine a pitch meeting sexy charm emphasized the Smart booking and sex education Because it’s so obvious in the final product – from the enthusiastic “let’s talk about sex” mother to a group of quirky high school students who flout convention.Whether intentional or not, the problem with a project like this sexy charm The biggest problem is that it ultimately lacks character, and the fact that the main character was raised by three lesbians doesn’t make up for that.
The film revolves around a teenage girl learning about consent, foreplay, pleasure, partnership, and the many other aspects that make sex a pleasurable experience. Her impromptu interviews with classmates lead her to understand the misconceptions and misunderstandings that teenagers have about sex. Avery then put into practice what she learned with Larson, but unbeknownst to her, her test subject had developed strong feelings for her. Along the way, Avery must learn that sex isn’t just a purely physical experience, it’s an emotional one too. All of this is pretty important and relevant material in a teen sex comedy, especially in an age where more and more misguided adults want to prevent young people from learning about this completely natural experience. So, in terms of its original intent, Gender Attraction at least succeeds in getting its message across. This is a well-intentioned and well-directed feature film.
The Sexy Charm of Mika Abdalla
although sexy charm Its goal is to inform and entertain, but it falters when exploring these themes through an underdeveloped protagonist. Mika Abdalla is charming as Avery, but she can’t overcome the tragedy of her protagonist’s underdevelopment. On the surface, Avery undergoes growth, but much of that growth translates into voiceover narration. Abdalla, as well as Jake Short, weren’t given much screen time to develop their character arcs. Furthermore, Avery and Larson lack any interesting or defining qualities. All sense of personality has been squeezed out of the supporters, who are left with nothing but quirks and snappy dialogue. When Avery and Larson have a sexual encounter, there are cute little vignettes that try to make up for what these characters lack in personality. These moments quickly lose their appeal, inducing eye rolls every time the screen fills with a soft pink/purple neon haze.
For this film to work, there needs to be an emphasis on the emotional growth of the main character. She remained stubbornly stagnant for so long that once she started to change, it was too late. The most common rule of “show, don’t tell” should apply here. Avery tells us what she’s thinking and feeling, often through footage of her riding a scooter or wordlessly entering codes into an app. Since her character development is largely defined by the narration, the clues left for the audience are rather empty. Without an evocative central character, the entire film falls apart. There needs to be more movies and TV shows starring complex and nuanced young women and girls. Sexual attraction has good intentions and good instincts, but a lack of nuance undermines the entire endeavor. Maybe Hulu’s latest will find an audience willing to accept its flaws, or maybe most people will gravitate toward something better.
sexy charm Streaming on Hulu starting Friday, January 14th. 90 minutes long, not rated.
