Chemical Hearts
Amazon Studios | Release Date (Streaming): August 21, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
The PlaylistAsher LubertoSep 13, 2020
It isn’t pretty — it’s by turns confusing, exhilarating, depressing and deflating. But then again, so is high school. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 21, 2020
Although it would be fair to say there are “feel good” moments in the movie, the film as a whole seeks to dig a little deeper. It’s not as effective as the effervescently witty "500 Days of Summer," but there are times when it strives for a similar sensibility. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyAug 21, 2020
A deeply felt teenage melodrama. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonAug 20, 2020
What makes Chemical Hearts so good is it’s unafraid of its feelings. It tackles complicated emotional issues such as depression, suicide, sex and love with a straightforward honesty. For once, a film about young people is completely free of snark and irony. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesAug 20, 2020
Writer and director Richard Tanne (Southside With You, about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date) takes what sounds like a terrible idea and transforms it into a sleek, well-played romance that largely makes the cliches believable. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 20, 2020
Assuaging teenage growing pains like a shot of novocaine administered by a shaky hand, this tender and subdued look around the limbo between adolescence and adulthood might start with a sullen kid trying to save his crush from her darkest secrets, but it never gets swept up in the idea that he actually can. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorAug 20, 2020
It’s a film that considers young heartbreak so earnestly, it risks taking itself too seriously, too. Read full review
60
EmpireElla KempAug 26, 2020
An impassioned and imperfect portrait of teenage grief and heartbreak, Chemical Hearts takes its audience seriously. For every teenager who has ever felt alone, this feels like a tailor-made care package. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeAug 23, 2020
Heavy-handed symbolism aside, this is a decent little drama which digs into the bewildering limbo state between childhood and the adult world – a time in which everything hurts, heads are full of hormones and time stretches out interminably. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 21, 2020
Chemical Hearts never pretends that getting through teenagerhood is easy or fun. But if Grace and Henry can survive the perils of first love, there’s got to be hope for the rest of us. Reliving all that anxiety makes adulthood in the modern age look better — at least a little. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicShaena MontanariAug 20, 2020
Chemical Hearts is sad, dark and depending on how much heartbreak you can take, almost too depressing at times. But it definitely provides something different in the teenage romance genre — except that something different may make you miss the days of cheesy high school rom-coms by the end. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKevin CrustAug 22, 2020
Tanne, who tackled the relationship of a young Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama in “Southside With You,” also hits the physiological explanation of the pain of heartbreak (from which the book and movie draw their titles) pretty hard. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanAug 20, 2020
Despite the movie’s sympathy for the high stakes of Henry’s adolescence, the myopia of his point of view settles over “Chemical Hearts” like a layer of grime. Read full review
50
VarietyGuy LodgeAug 20, 2020
For all its serious-faced surface grit, Chemical Hearts never quite rings true. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyMary SollosiAug 20, 2020
An adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s YA novel Our Chemical Hearts, Tanne’s second film doesn’t live up to the promise of his first, lacking its texture and specificity, but still offers small insights and worthy central performances. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 20, 2020
This elaborately contrived story feels as if it has been cobbled together from a dozen others, and it never escapes cliche. Read full review
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