“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

Chemical Hearts is a grippingly accurate motion picture that treats its key topic with extreme delicacy and intricacy.

The movie follows the story of Henry Page, a teenage student who considers himself a hopeless romantic but has never fallen in love. The young man aspires to be editor of the high school newspaper and lives happily focused on his studies to enter a good university, until Grace Town enters his class. His new partner is not exactly the girl of his dreams, but little by little he falls in love with her when the two teenagers are chosen to edit the institute newspaper.

The beauty of Chemical Hearts is that in spite of the impractical premise that was clear from the very beginning, the story is essentially a grim and somehow a brutal interpretation of young love and its fathomable consequences.

Chemical Hearts’ script is filled with unconditionally spellbinding and hypnotic poetry and writings. Despite its very short runtime, the movie was swarming with expressive thoughts and metaphors that can leave any viewer stupefied and fixated!

Moreover, the movie did not only explore light themes such as young love and high-school shenanigans, it also made sure to highlight some truly complicated and heavy ones such as heartache, dysfunctional family affairs and most prominently trauma and how to cope with it and process it! If anything, these complex themes were the most dominant and helped in creating a really depressing and gloomy atmosphere that just speaks to one’s soul directly!

The film’s protagonists were meticulously written to convey a certain type of emotions within the viewers and from my own experience I can only confirm that this was the case. Both of the leads were hauntingly devastating, raw and sincere.

Lili Reinharts’s portrayal of one of these extremely complicated characters was astonishing. Not only did she manage to portray her character with such accuracy and precision, she also convinced us with her otherworldly performance that was just spectacular and captivating.

My only criticism would be that the storyline could have used a little bit more depth. You see, the story was being told from only one of the character’s point of view. I would’ve loved to witness it from the other perspective. I believe that that could’ve taken the story to a whole new level filled with extreme interpretations!

Nevertheless, Chemical Hearts is an absolutely gripping experience that I wholeheartedly consider one of this year’s best!!

A high school senior falls in love with a new transfer student who hides a heartbreaking secret.

Director: Richard Tanne
Based on: Our Chemical Hearts; by Krystal Sutherland
Producer: Richard Tanne
Production companies: AwesomenessTV, Page Fifty-Four Pictures