Tall Girl Writers, Do Better — The Lexington Line

As an avid binge-watching, responsibility-negligent, 20-something woman, I have made it my personal undisclosed mission to indulge myself in the horrors that are Netflix original movies. Do I put myself through the torture of it all in the hopes of finding a diamond in the rough? Maybe. Do I also put myself through the torture to elicit my very own guttural and disgusting laughter as I pity the societally inadequate writing of Netflix Originals scriptwriters? Yes, absolutely.

Also, if you actually want to watch the movie, this is the part where I should say, “spoilers ahead.” So, continue at the peril of knowing what the predictable twist is.

Tall Girl, a movie written, produced, and streamed by Netflix, is the new two-hour laughingstock of Netflix’s homemade productions. Tall Girl is a film in which the plot revolves around 16-year-old, 6’1” pretty tomboy, Jodi, whose biggest plights in life are finding a man tall enough for her and finding women’s shoes in a men’s size 13. Main supporting characters include Fareeda, the deliberately “sassy” best friend willing to die on the hill of ostracizing others for making fun of Jodi’s height, Jack Dunkleman, the short and quirky boy best friend who is obviously (to Jodi, not just the audience) in love with Jodi, Kimmy, the mean girl who is also unrealistically gorgeous for a high schooler, and of course, Stig, the beautiful blonde Swedish exchange student that is the primary love interest of everyone in the high school. Crickets.

Cast from left to right: Griffin Gluck (Dunkleman), Clara Wilsey (Kimmy Stitcher), Rico Paris (Schnipper), Ava Michelle (Jodi), Sabrina Carpenter (Harper), Paris Berelc (Liz), Luke Eisner (Stig), and Anjelika Washington (Fareeda).

Before I begin really critiquing this film, I’d like to make one thing explicitly clear: Tall women really do face struggles that those of us that are 5’6” and under do not. I have plenty of stunning tall friends, and the problems highlighted in this movie are actually legitimate—It’s just that they are over-exaggerated and framed in a way that makes tall girls seem like commonplace victims. Alas, I digress.

The movie begins with overwrought puns about height. Boo. It also frames literally every single person except Stig, the Swede, as looking around two or three feet shorter than Jodi. I’m sure all of us have stood next to someone who’s 6’1”, and if you’re around 5’6”, the height difference is not really that aggressive. So, realistically, the portrayal in and of itself is already going a bit too far, but we can accredit that to creative liberties.

Enter beautiful Swede, prompt the drooling protagonist. Cue the mean girl immediately making the Swede her boyfriend. Roll clip of our trusted and predictable protagonist running to her perfect sister, whose only flaw is that she has allergies, to ask, “How do I get boys to notice me?” desperately. Pan camera to me, the narrator of this torrid review. What do you see? Eyes rolling.

Long story short for expository narrative is that Jodi gets the guy, but not all the way. In fact, he’s kind of awful and really loves the spotlight, because I suppose in Sweden he’s considered “ugly” and “a dork” (his words, not mine) which means that he can cheat on his girlfriend with Jodi and also hide her from everyone else. This was certainly the most real-world part of the whole movie.

Honorable Distasteful Mentions: The lack of diversity was overwhelming. The dialogue was extremely awkward, though, at times there was reprieve in this category. The family dynamic was a nightmare (portraying everyone to essentially be perfect except for Jodi). And, finally, my favorite part… the writers of this film decided to integrate an ongoing theme of referring to Jodi’s height as “adversity.” She’s a white, thin, heterosexual, conventionally attractive, upper middle class gal. That’s where the bullying plot really falls flat. Shame on thee.

Some of the best and most noteworthy moments were at the end when she realized the short best friend was the guy she should really be going for… shocking? Not even a little bit. Still cute? Hate to admit it. Other good moments developed between the family as well, and the dialogue became a lot more real and showed positive character development. We really do love to see it.

The film wraps up loosely on the key notes of body positivity, overcoming the horrors of high school bullies, and using the brain cells given to you to make better romantic choices than settling for the asshole with glowing skin and flowing blonde locks. It sits with you the way most Adam Sandler rom-coms do: You know you wasted a couple of hours, but you genuinely don’t mind.

I would only fire about half the scriptwriters on this. I am quite confident in rating this Netflix Original a 6.5/10 (drastically better than Sierra Burgess Is A Loser, Swiped, and Insatiable).