Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sierra Burgess Is A Loser’ On Netflix, Where A Teen Becomes A 21st Century Cyrano

Netflix has been doing a good job with rom-coms of late, especially with the success of films like The Kissing Booth and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Now the buzz is building for Sierra Burgess Is A Loser, starring Stranger Things fan favorite Shannon Purser. Is it as good as the other films?

SIERRA BURGESS IS A LOSER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Sierra Burgess (Shannon Purser) is a typical high schooler with atypical parents: Her dad Stephen (Alan Ruck) is a famous author, and her mother Jules (Lea Thompson) is a popular motivational speaker who is aging very gracefully. And even though she gets viciously bullied for her looks and weight by Veronica (Kristine Forseth) and her coterie of cheerleaders, she seems to be content to hang with her buddy Dan (RJ Cyler) and work her way into Stanford.

But when Jamey (Noah Centineo), a quarterback for East Pasadena’s high archrivals in West Pasadena, approaches Veronica for a date, she gives him Sierra’s number because, despite his hunkiness, “losers hang out with losers,” Veronica says as she eyeballs his nerdy friends.

This starts a chain of events where Sierra gets a random text from an unknown number, but ends up getting into an ongoing conversation with Jamey as they find out more about each other. He’s smarter and more interesting than your average jock, and he finds Sierra smart and funny. Problem is, he still thinks she’s Veronica.

So when things start getting serious (bare-chested sexts, a request to meet in person), she goes to Veronica to help her, in exchange for helping the cheerleader appear smarter to the college douche that just dumped her. As they study and get to know each other, an unlikely friendship blossoms, but as the charade starts getting more complicated, a side of Sierra comes out that no one has ever seen before, surprising everyone from her parents to her teachers to her best friend Dan.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Well, there are a bunch of teen rom-coms on Netflix right now, from Carrie Pilby to To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and more. But because this is a modern-era Cyrano de Bergerac story, it might also remind you of movies like Roxanne, who used the Cyrano story in a more traditional context.

Performance Worth Watching: Purser, in her first starring role, shows us why we fell in love with her as the hapless Barb in the first season of Stranger Things. There’s a confidence to her performance that makes you wonder why Sierra is considered such a “loser” by Veronica and her buddies. Yes, she’s not a glamour puss, or cheerleader skinny, two things that seem to be so important at her age, but she makes Sierra immediately lovable and someone you want to see win out at the end of the movie. Which makes what happens in the film’s last half hour even more of a gut punch (more on this in a bit).

Memorable Dialogue: After being dressed down by her domineering mother Trish (Chrissy Metz) and sisters, Veronica tells Sierra that the name her twin little sisters call her — “Moronica” — is true. “Look, you’re not a moron. You think of some seriously mean crap. You’ve got to have something going on upstairs to think of those insults.”

Single Best Shot: Sierra and Jamey have their first phone conversation, and Sierra goes under her blanket to hide her voice a bit. The pure joy we see in her face as she essentially falls in love with Jamey under those blankets is priceless.

Sex and Skin: Jamey texts Sierra-as-Veronica a pic of himself shirtless, but that’s about as risque as things get.

Our Take: It’s tough to retell the Cyrano story in a fresh way, given that the story has been used in countless movies and TV series; it was even used on Seinfeld. But in Sierra Burgess screenwriter Lindsey Beer and director Ian Samuels have managed to accomplish that, in large part because of the movie’s ingenious casting.

When the movie begins, Purser plays Sierra as someone who isn’t popular but isn’t a loser like the title suggests, and we see that she doesn’t even let Veronica and company’s viciousness get to her. It’s hard to convey that lovability while showing how her external environment affects her, but Purser balances that perfectly. Every time she smiled and let loose her “eh, so what?” attitude towards Veronica, we rooted for her even harder.

We did scratch our heads a little bit, though, when things with Jamey took a turn that makes Sierra into a person that not even her parents recognize. After not hearing a ton about how tough it is to grow up in the shadow of her famous, literary-quote-spewing father and gorgeous, successful mother, it suddenly becomes an issue. The charade that is the most exciting and romantic thing she’s ever done has also undermined the confidence we saw in her at the beginning of the movie.

It feels more abrupt than Samuels likely intended, but we also see it knowing that, this being a rom-com, things will work out in the end. And the way they work out, via Purser’s gorgeous singing voice, makes the abruptness of her personality change more acceptable.

We also liked that the story was just as much about the developing friendship of Sierra and Veronica than about Sierra “getting the guy.” In a way, that friendship is even more important to Sierra than the relationship with Jamey, and the fact that it gets equal weight in the story is refreshing to see. Especially good is Cyler as Dan, who is one of the funnier rom-com best friends we’ve seen in awhile, and Metz as Veronica’s image-obsessed mother, whose control issues are there for a very good reason.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Purser is a winner, as is pretty much the rest of the cast in this very smart rom-com that’s much more than an old story with new technology.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Sierra Burgess Is A Loser on Netflix