Teenage Limbo: "Chemical Hearts" another deeply felt YA romance rarity

Chemical Hearts (2020)

93 min.

Release Date: August 21, 2020 (Amazon Prime Video)

Before one goes and scoffs at there being a third YA love story released this month, “Chemical Hearts” is more of a rarity than expected. Though the film does eventually circle around a tragedy that has deeply affected one of the characters, this adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s 2016 novel “Our Chemical Hearts” is free of throwing in any sudden deaths or festering illnesses. This story is more about navigating a brush with adulthood and new feelings, like young love but also trauma and grief. With two engaging, deeply felt performances by Austin Abrams (2019’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”) and Lili Reinhart (2019’s “Hustlers”), “Chemical Hearts” is a gentle, mature teen drama that truly shines. 

New Jersey high school student Henry Page (Austin Abrams) has always wanted to be a writer, but he hasn't yet experienced anything remarkable in his life to know what to write about. At the start of his senior year, he finally begins to focus more on his writing pursuits by applying for the school’s newspaper editor-in-chief position. On that same day, Henry meets transfer student Grace Town (Lili Reinhart), who is also chosen to be a co-editor. She is guarded and standoffish, yet she likes reading love poems. Disabled with a knee injury and walking with a cane, Grace seems to be recovering from something that Henry hasn’t discovered yet. When Grace offers him a ride home, she actually hands Henry the keys to drive, and then once they arrive to his house, she leaves her car at his house and walks back home alone. (The recurring use of Beach House’s “Take Care” in Grace’s car even becomes a plot point that later triggers Grace when he plays it outside of her car.) As these teenagers are forced to lead the paper, Grace and Henry begin to have a deep connection, but can it last?

As adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Tanne (2016’s “Southside with You”), “Chemical Hearts” is a reflective, melancholy exploration of the teenage experience. The film doesn’t treat Henry and Grace’s relationship like the only relationship they will ever have, but it is in tune with how new and exciting love can be, whilst acknowledging that people can have more than one love in their life. Henry and, if she didn’t carry a heavy heart, Grace are on different social planes, but they do share a passion for writing. As Henry puts it, he can’t find the words when he speaks and she can’t find the words when she writes. The heartache these two each experience is leavened by the sweet times they share.

Much praise must go to Austin Abrams and Lili Reinhart, who can both still convince as teenagers, for bringing life and feeling to these characters. Abrams is likable and thoughtful in playing Henry Page, a straight arrow who may be ordinary and seems to have missed out on the rites of passage as a teen, but the actor never allows him to be a bore. Receiving her first co-lead role in a feature film, Reinhart impresses as Grace Town. She not only has a lovely disposition but a true gravitas, playing a young woman who’s almost like a wounded shell of the person she used to be. Grace is wise beyond her years and has been through a lot, but she doesn’t have all the answers, either. She has had to mature emotionally faster than most teens, considering her personal near-death experience and loss. It should be noted, too, that Grace, as a character, is refreshingly not a mere savior for Henry; in fact, Henry and Grace help each other, even if their relationship could just be fleeting. 

Henry’s hobby of piecing back together broken vases feels a wee bit heavy-handed, and his seemingly ideal parents unfortunately don’t really get to register, despite being played by character actors Meg Gibson and Bruce Altman. There are little grace notes sprinkled throughout, however. On the sidelines, a relationship sweetly re-blossoms between Henry's best friend La (Kara Young) and another girl, Cora (Coral Peña), at a Halloween party. Also, in a couple of tender scenes between Henry and his recently heartbroken older sister Suds (an emotionally available Sarah Jones), a nurse who’s back living at home following a break-up, there is a key monologue about how love and heartbreak are chemical reactions that are adjustable. Much like Grace’s line about equating the painful teenage years to “limbo” and calling adults “just scarred kids,” “Chemical Hearts” gets right the years of emotions running high when you are no longer a kid but not yet an adult. As the film on a whole is low-key but never wispy and touching without being sappy or overly mopey, the final moments are bittersweet yet extremely hopeful. Just like real life.

Grade: B