The Kissing Booth (2018)
Directed by Vince Marcello
No · Ultra Based
How we score movies →Consciousness Markers
The cast is predominantly white with no significant effort toward racial or ethnic diversity. While Molly Ringwald provides some cultural resonance, the supporting cast lacks meaningful representation of marginalized communities.
While the protagonist is female and makes her own romantic choices, the narrative ultimately centers male desire and treats her agency as a plot device rather than a thematic concern.
The film is set in a affluent suburban context but contains no critique of wealth, capitalism, or economic inequality. The setting simply exists without commentary.
While the film is primarily entertainment-focused, occasional dialogue touches on friendship values and loyalty, though these remain thematic rather than preachy.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or representation are present in the film. The narrative is entirely heteronormative.
The film contains no engagement with racial themes, dynamics, or consciousness. Race is simply not a consideration in the narrative.
No climate-related themes or environmental consciousness appears in the film.
The film features conventionally attractive actors and presents no exploration of body diversity or body positivity themes.
No characters with neurodivergence or disability representation appear in the film.
The film contains no historical elements or revisionist historical content.
Synopsis
When teenager Elle's first kiss leads to a forbidden romance with the hottest boy in high school, she risks her relationship with her best friend.
Why it received this score
The Kissing Booth is a straightforward teen romance that operates entirely within conventional Hollywood frameworks, offering neither critique nor complication of its own narrative assumptions. The film concerns itself with the mechanics of attraction and the drama of competing loyalties between a best friend and a romantic interest, treating these matters with the earnestness of a Valentine's Day card. Its cast is predominantly white and conventionally attractive, its romantic lead female but ultimately subordinate to the desires and needs of the male characters around her, and its worldview remains firmly rooted in heteronormative, capitalist teen fantasy. The film does not attempt to interrogate these choices or acknowledge their implications. What emerges is entertainment designed to appeal to a specific demographic without any apparent interest in expanding its moral or social horizons. For a 2018 release, this represents a notable absence of the progressive sensibilities that had by then become standard in mainstream film discourse.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Critic Reviews
“If you're looking for a teen comedy that isn't a grow-up-too-fast exposure to your tweens, Kissing Booth isn't it. But the arc of the story packs a lot of lust and relationship lessons that anybody older than 15 can relate to, and learn from.”
“As cinema either theatrical or televisual is concerned, The Kissing Booth is negligible. It is fascinating, though, as a study in the semiotics of the high school movie, especially in the ways it's been recodified since "young adult" became a real genre.”
“The high school-set rom-com is a sexist and regressive look at relationships that highlights the worst impulses of the genre.”