Flipped

Impressions before seeing it
I actually downloaded this movie by accident a while back when I was trying to download Black Swan and the file turned out to be Flipped instead. Never heard of it, but I figured I might as well watch it since I already had it. When I looked it up and saw it was about eighth-graders falling in love in the 1960's, I was wary.

How was it?
Working with child actors is risky, because if they're bad actors then your audience tends to hate them, potentially moreso than adult actors who lack talent. In a movie like Flipped where both of the main characters are about 12 years old and have to carry the film, it's crucial that they be good. Luckily, they were.

I liked that the story was told from the viewpoints of both characters, sometimes taking a little step backward in time from one so that we can follow the other up to the same situation, and there is a lot of narration from Bryce and Julie in every scene so we get the scope of what they're thinking. However, it still felt a little biased toward Bryce. I think most of the time his viewpoint came first, he would see Julie do something without knowing why, and then we would go to Julie's viewpoint for the explanation. Which works well if you're a male viewer because that element of mystery makes it more interesting, but I can't help wondering if this ruins it for the females, because with Bryce's part always coming first chronologically, they don't get the mystery of "why did he do that?" Though I'll admit this thought is based on a slightly sexist assumption that all females watching would automatically understand Julie. I don't know anyone else who has seen this movie so I can't really say.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by this because I wasn't sure I would like it. Because the characters are at that near-puberty age, they're confused about these new feelings and it was interesting watching it play out. For the first half of the movie, Julie has a huge crush on Bryce and he wants nothing to do with her, but then somewhere along the way it flips (get it?) and Bryce is into an uninterested Julie. Will they ever meet in the middle?

Recommendation
It probably sounds lame on paper - I thought so, too - but I think it's worth checking out if you're up for a light and cute romance about the confusing nature of young love. Though I would be interested to find out if one's gender has an effect on this movie's enjoyment factor due to the possible viewpoint bias.