20th Century Girl was going strong as a light, fluff and full on cliche teen romance with cute characters, fun interaction and a bit of 90’ nostalgia, until the writers decided to be “ambitious” and give it a random, unfitting and poorly executed ending to make the movie “more memorable”. And I’m here questioning why? I get it, as a writer you don’t want to start your career with a cute, but not memorable rom-com, but what we’ve got here is not the way to go.

What went well? Most of the characters are likable, even if they lacked depth. Bora was your typical energetic and bubbly girl, Woon Ho was a perfect first love material with his warm demeanor, and Hyun Jin was the most fun and entertaining of the group. Sadly, the writer did Kim Yeon Doo dirty presenting her in rather unflattering light - clueless about the situation she was in, not getting a hint about the relations people around her have, defined by her circumstances and the illness - little to no info about her as a person.

Surprisingly, I adored all the piling misunderstandings. All of them presented in a light and heartwarming way, showing the mistakes most of us made when we were teens facing our first love.

What’s more - 20th Century Girl is simply beautiful. The use of light and shadows gave me goosebumps more than once. I am a sucker for good dim aesthetics.

So what went wrong? For a movie that is 2 hours long, we truly did not know much about the characters. Halfway through the movie I started to question, how there is still an hour to go and why are we not exploring any of the circumstances the characters are in?

The acting was also not mind blowing. Maybe I expected too much from this cast, but with a plot so simple and full of well known cliches, the performances are what carry it. Here, while everyone did a great job, none of the portrayals of the characters was truly unforgettable. My biggest issues were the more emotional scenes - they did not resonate at all. Maybe because Kim Yoo Jung tried to tap deep into the overly emotional teen, but her crying was more annoying and less moving than I would like.

By now, everyone knows the ending is just disappointing. I honestly don’t have an issue with the idea the writer had for it, but the execution was simply bad - no set up, no explanation, no message to tie it all together, no nothing.

Overall, it’s a decent movie, bringing back many memories of my teen romances and for that I am grateful. It’s not exactly memorable, nor innovative, nor a simple feel good watch. Tries to stand out in the sea of teen rom-coms with the ending, but fails to truly deliver a cohesive narrative that leads to this conclusion.