My rating: 5/10. On the dot.
I feel like this is going to be brief. Maybe it’s because this movie doesn’t inspire my brain gears to churn. Not because it was terrible — it really wasn’t — but because it leaned so heavily on its tropes and brought so little new to the table, it failed to make much of an impression.
The Perfect Date is a Typical teen rom-com. Hell yeah, Typical with a capital T! It begins with Brooks Rattigan, our enthusiastic protagonist. We learn everything we need to know about him at the start: he wants to go to Yale, he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, just knows that he wants to be special. And whenever anyone dare question these vague aspirations, he gives them a blank puppy dog look.
The thing is, this guy IS special. He’s clearly intelligent, he’s got this pro-level chameleon shit going on where he effortlessly transforms himself into whatever people want him to be. He could bank on that so easily. It’s a massive talent and I don’t know why the movie treats this character like he’s got nothing going for himself.
Anyway. So while at work one day, Brooks hears some rich guy from school complaining about having to take his cousin to a dance. Brooks steps up, offers to do it for him, and thus is catapulted into the main plot. Not long after this, it becomes clear this is a fake relationship trope deal, and all the typical shenanigans that go along with that.
I feel like I need to stress that this is not a bad movie. It isn’t subpar or par or whatever weird golfing term means good. It’s somewhere floating around perfectly average. There are some excellent lines. The acting is actually pretty decent, and the production value is passable enough that you won’t be distracted by any flaws.
It simply wasn’t interesting.
I didn’t like the characters. I didn’t dislike them either. I didn’t feel their chemistry. I didn’t particularly care if they worked out their differences and got together in the end. Honestly, everyone was so busy lying to each other and the movie was so busy treating his mind-blowing talents like they were a flaw, I stopped caring about the truth.
To me, it wasn’t entertaining. Like, at all. If you like the actors and are more forgiving about plot holes, logical leaps, and missed opportunities than I am, it’s entirely possible you could enjoy it. If not, maybe pass this one up.
Other movie reviews by Sam Clover:
Sam Clover is a published author of M/M speculative fiction. Though she dabbles in a variety of genres, dark themes always find ways to permeate her work. She is a prairie girl from east of the Canadian Rockies, and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Her debut book “Cold Snap” was released by Ninestar Press in December of 2020.
Sam Clover 
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