Directed by: Vince Marcello
Starring: Joey King, Jacob Elordi, Joel Courtney, Meganne Young, Molly Ringwald, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Taylor Zakhar Perez
Kissing Booth 2 could qualify as a short film if the characters would simply talk to each other and hold necessary conversations instead of keeping their emotions all bottled up. Nope, everyone just keeps a lid on it until an awkward Thanksgiving dinner where all of the participants are magically convened at the same table to air out their dirty laundry. The parents, to their credit, handle this explosive drama with amazing aplomb.
Instead, this sequel to the unlikely 2018 Netflix hit runs over two hours, with its hero Elle (King) pontificating out loud at the end about experiences which many audience members only wish would be the worst of their problems. I'll encapsulate the misunderstandings which plague these people: Elle's boyfriend Noah (Elordi) goes off to Harvard and gains a gal pal who Elle suspects might be trying to win her man. Noah isn't exactly forthcoming about the true nature of their relationship, or much else. Phone conversations with Noah would probably include interminable stretches of silence.
Lee (Courtney), Elle's best friend since birth, has a girlfriend named Rachel (Young) who resents Elle hanging around with them all the time. Rachel breaks up with Lee over this, and of course he doesn't tell Elle to back off because he does what everyone else does in this movie when it comes to speaking up. Elle has applied to UC Berkeley along with Lee, but also applies to Harvard to be near Noah. She also has a potential romantic interest in Marco (Perez), a hunky guy who becomes Elle's partner in a video game dance contest where the winners could win $50,000. The competition takes place in a building large enough to be the Staples Center. And it appears the prize money comes from the gate, because the arena is packed with wall-to-wall people who have nothing better to do in pre-pandemic Los Angeles than watch a video game dance-off. It's rather cruel to see Elle lead the nice Marco on, while she pines over the reticent Noah, who may or may not be pining over Elle.
It's bizarre watching the goings-on at the prep school everyone attends. Appearance and physical fitness must be two prerequisites to getting in. No one attends that school that couldn't pass for a model or athlete. The ugliest person at this school would be treated like royalty at any other schools.
Student council holds meetings on the first day of school, where Elle and Lee pitch another kissing booth to far less fanfare than last year. It's amusing to hear the airhead council members stress that there can't be a kissing booth because there isn't anyone as appealing as Noah to headline it. What?
They could throw a rock and hit two or three Noah clones. And everyone is so darn accepting, even the school's Mean Girls clique. One minor character comes out publicly in front of the whole school and everyone applauds. One character professes his love for another over the intercom to the raucous cheers of the student body. Where in Fantasyland is this school?
Another unintentionally funny moment in Kissing Booth 2 is Molly Ringwald's advice to Elle about doing more listening than talking. Ringwald's only function in these movies is to walk on, provide the teens some expert advice, and then disappear. And does Ms. Ringwald not realize that the reason for the blowup at her dinner table was because no one knows how to talk to anyone anymore? But, no matter, because everyone forgives everyone in the end, and all complications and misunderstandings are cleared up long after they should've been handled with simple explanations. I'm sure we will have another go-round of this teen drama in Kissing Booth 3, which the ending suggests will happen.
Elle will be forced to choose between going to two different colleges to be with either Noah or Lee, and judging by each's behavior in this film, she should choose another college far away from either one.
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