Sierra Burgess Is a Loser (2018)

Sierra Burgess Is a Loser arrives as a Netflix teen comedy with a Cyrano de Bergerac chassis and a catfishing engine. Shannon Purser plays Sierra, a bright, unpopular girl whose phone number gets handed to a handsome football player by the popular Veronica. The casting is more varied than the 2018 teen-comedy baseline: a plus-size lead, a Black best friend, a Black authority figure, an Asian classmate. The film does not comment on this arrangement. It simply lets these people occupy the frame, which is either progress or staffing, depending on the viewer's mood.

The body-positive premise is real and also compromised. Sierra's appearance is the supposed source of her loser status, and the ending insists she deserves love and desire as she is. But the plot spends two acts treating her looks as a secret to be managed, which muddies the affirmation. The feminist charge is similarly moderate. Sierra and Veronica move from antagonism to mutual support, and Veronica eventually defies her mother's cheerleader-trophy expectations. The film means well. It also keeps reaching for rom-com mechanics whenever a thesis threatens to form.

Race is present but never addressed. The romantic geometry is strictly heterosexual. The film has no use for environmental alarm, anti-capitalist anger, neurodivergent characters, or historical revision. The moral is a light be-yourself and women-supporting-women nudge, delivered through reconciliation and a homecoming hug. Nothing here sermonizes with real force. The film wants to be sweet, and it is mostly sweet, even when the catfishing and the non-consensual kiss make the sweetness curdle. A curious vintage: sincere, moderately inclusive, and not especially eager to lecture.