Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Kissing Booth’ On Netflix Celebrates Teen Horniness

There are few things as mythic in the mind of a teenage girl than how she’ll land her first kiss. For Elle Evans, things get more complicated when her best friend sets up a Kissing Booth at school. The Kissing Booth is a kind of throwback teen comedy that revels in its heroine discovering her sexuality with theatrical wit and the old school beats of the genre, but is it worth a stream?

THE KISSING BOOTH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Elle Evans (Joey King) and Lee Flynn (Joel Courtney) have been best friends since the day they were born. After the smart and sporty Elle causes a scene wearing a short skirt on her first day of Junior year, the boys — including Lee’s older brother Noah (Jacob Elordi) — start seeing her in a new way. After finding themselves thwarted in love, Elle and Lee joke about pitching a Kissing Booth for the school fundraiser, and Lee accidentally follows through. The only issue is that the Kissing Booth turns into a way for Elle and Noah to get closer, which threatens to tear Elle and Lee’s friendship apart.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Kissing Booth is almost a throwback to when teen comedies were bright, light, and brimming with the happy kind of hormones. The sort-of love triangle between Elle, her best friend Ty, and his older brother Noah has the classic air of John Hughes’ best-loved classics, but the quality of the dialogue is sadly more akin to a Disney movie, but raunchier. Visually, though, this film owes the most to 10 Things I Hate About You — its heroine is a smart ass soccer player who drunkenly dances on a table at a party and later there’s a paint fight. Sound like Julia Stiles’ Katerina Stratford to you?

Performance Worth Watching: Cinephiles should take note of The Kissing Booth for Joey King’s debut as an ingenue. The 18-year-old actress has spent her childhood and adolescence popping up in Hollywood’s biggest hits, but this is the first time that she has to carry an entire film — and sell herself as a possible future star. In her best moments, King exhibits the same kind of wry spunk that marked Emma Stone as a star on the rise in The House Bunny and Easy A. King’s good, but she’s still clearly finding her voice as a young woman onscreen. For all the professionalism in the performance — King can carry a film — she can sometimes slide into the coy, cutesy line delivery that child stars are known for.

Memorable Dialogue: “It’s funny to think about that all this happened because of a kissing booth.” Which is a line I’ll remember because it’s the last line, and the context of Elle saying it in voice over, as she rides a motorcycle along the coast makes zero sense. But ah, such is The Kissing Booth. 

Single Best Shot: Visually-speaking, the film is largely unremarkable, but Elle and Noah’s first kiss gets dramatized as an ecstatic, explosive fantasy moment. It’s actually a pretty good visual representation of the rush of a first really great kiss.

Sex and Skin: Just to warn you: There’s. So. Much. Kissing. (In. This. Movie. About. A. Kissing. Booth.) Yeah, be prepared for a never-ending onslaught of makeout scenes. That said, for a teen comedy about love and lust, we don’t see too much in the way of R-rated material. Skirts fly up to reveal panty-covered butts, shirts come off to reveal bras, but there’s no more nudity than you’ll see at your local community pool in the daylight hours. That said, there is sex in this film, but it’s handled mostly off-screen and with clothes on. In fact, I have to give The Kissing Booth props for handling teen sex without voyeurism, but with an emphasis on safe practices and consent. Our heroine chooses to have sex and makes sure to buy condoms.

Our Take: Wow, this movie. Well, it’s a strange one.

The Kissing Booth‘s plot is tissue paper thin. So much of the story makes little to no sense — most especially the Kissing Booth itself. The only rule established is that the person in the booth is supposed to be blindfolded, but the blindfolds come off real quick. There’s a random, wordless gay subplot. Lee’s cute girlfriend has little to no personality. There are bizarro sight gags that defy reality. It’s weird.

And yet, and yet…there’s an almost Brechtian level of self-aware absurdity to this film that makes it kind of fun. The Kissing Booth has a roguish charm that I was rather entranced by. Never before have I seen a teen comedy that lets a sassy, sporty, quirky girl like Elle enjoy the ever-loving shit out of being a horny teen. There’s usually mocking, teasing, shaming… And sure, there are a few scenes where harassment takes place or assault is threatened, but Elle is quickly rescued from these moments. The blame is all on the boys who take things too far without her consent.

However, throughout this film, multiple boys display a possessive affection for Elle. She repeatedly has to explain that she is her own person and she can do what she wants. Nevertheless, the eventual fight between Lee and Noah isn’t over the fact that Lee also likes her; it’s that Lee wants Elle all to himself. It’s this messaging that muddles all the good the film does for sexual positivity.

Our Call: Here’s the thing: The Kissing Booth is not a good movie. It is a good, drunk, mindless, late night rom-com watch, but it is not a good movie. For that, we say skip it. (And like, watch 10 Things I Hate About You again instead?)

Stream The Kissing Booth on Netflix