Sierra Burgess is a Loser (2018)
Starring: Shannon Purser, Noah Centineo, Kristine Froseth, RJ Cyler
Director: Ian Samuels
Release Date: 7 September 2018
Rating: PG-13
Run Time: 1:45
Movie Type: Comedy, Drama, Romance
A case of mistaken identity results in unexpected romance when the most popular girl in high school and the biggest loser must come together to win over their crushes.
Netflix released another Noah Centineo rom-com this month and I finally got around to watching it over the weekend and let’s just say that I was less than impressed with this one.
Sierra Burgess is a Loser follows Sierra Burgess, a plump high school student who is bullied and teased at her school by pretty much everyone but mostly from mean girl Veronica and Veronica’s friends. For the most part, Sierra seems to be above everything because she’s planning on getting the hell out of Dodge the minute she can but then she gets a text message from a very cute boy named Jamie and things start unraveling for me.
So mean girl Veronica thought it would be funny to give Jamie, Sierra’s number when he hits on her and he’s over the moon and Veronica, queen bitch that she is laughs and laughs and laughs. When Jamie texts Sierra, she’s confused but she goes along with the texting because Jamie sent a picture and he’s a cutie pie so why not? I wasn’t mad that she kept texting Jamie at first until he calls her Veronica and she realizes that he thinks he’s texting her, not Sierra. Then it all goes downhill from there.
First, she continues to text Jamie and while I can understand that, the lengths she went through to keep texting Jamie really turned me off. She catfishes the hell out of him and ropes Veronica into helping her. Together, Veronica and Sierra fake a FaceTime call with Jamie and then Veronica goes on a date with Jamie while Sierra creeped on the date the entire time. It was so bad that at one point, Sierra is hiding underneath Jamie’s car while he talks to Veronica. What grossed me out was how Jamie leans in for a kiss with Veronica and the girls trick him into kissing Sierra instead. He doesn’t know that he kissed Sierra. He didn’t consent to kiss Sierra but the girls were so proud of their actions that it really creeped me out.
Throughout the entire movie, Sierra struggles with her self-esteem and I get it. I’m not skinny and I’ve felt exactly what Sierra felt in this movie but going through what she went through doesn’t make anything she did okay. Feeling bad about yourself does not give you a free pass to do shitty things. Sierra pretended to be deaf when she meets Jamie because she knew that his little brother was deaf and it was the only way that she could keep the charade up because he knew her voice. She played Jamie the entire movie, was a complete liar and through it all, Veronica helped her with whatever she needed because at the same time that Sierra is doing all of these shitty things to Jamie, Veronica and Sierra are becoming friends. Veronica is realizing that she’s a shitty person and being friends with Sierra is making her want to change her ways. There was a lot of character development with Veronica and I thought that was good, too bad I didn’t feel the same way about Sierra.
Sierra Burgess wasn’t a loser, she was a mean person and when the shit hits the fan and everything comes out, Sierra orchestrates it in a way that I thought was unforgivable. She hurt a lot of people with her actions and when the movie ended, I was pissed because there wasn’t an apology from Sierra. She doesn’t go to Jamie and apologize for everything that she’s put him through and there’s no apology for what she does to Veronica, which was a mean and completely ugly thing. No, she writes a song and pours her heart (I’d say soul but I didn’t think she had one) out and everyone forgives her and that’s that.
The movie had potential but it was a miss for me. After watching Stranger Things, I thought Barb deserved better and thought she’d get her better with this movie but I was wrong. I still think Barb deserves better, but not Sierra. I didn’t like her character at all.
Movie Trailer
My Rating
1 out of 5
Oh no! I don’t think I would like this at all. I wanted to watch because of Noah Centineo but I think I’ll pass.
Sorry if you were looking forward to this movie, Grace. It just didn’t work for me at all. 🙁
Awesome review, Rowena! I am plus size, too and I have to say that I hate how they portray plus size women in media. It’ll probably gonna skip this and stick to The Great British Baking Show – NOW THAT is an AWESOME SHOW!
Thanks, Zeee! The thing is Sierra Burgess could have handled so many things so much better and I would have been okay with the shitty things she did but while we see that she’s remorseful, she didn’t really apologize or go out of her way to make amends. So I’m good. No thanks.
I’ve been hearing some terrible things about this movie, and decided next to not watching it for that reason. I’ve been super-excited for it when the trailer was released, and expected it to have great friendship between the girls and a body-positive message, but wow, from everything I’ve seen and heard, this is hella problematic and horrid. Of course the catfishing seemed problematic even in the trailer, but I expected it to be pretty minor AND for Sierra to actually apologize for what she did. I’m honestly so disappointed by how Netflix has been handling its plus-size rep, and hope they’ll create something great soon.
Fantastic review, Rowena!
Veronika @ The Regal Critiques
Yep, I have been disappointed with Netflix on that front too. This whole movie was just gross to me and I was so turned off by everything that I read on Debbie Ryan’s show that I didn’t even bother with that one. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Netflix will turn things around.
I saw the bad reviews for this before I watched but my need to see Noah Centineo on screen were strong. It was bad though. It began being cute I was all ready to enjoy it but the catfishing business was not good. And when Sierra hacked Veronica’s social media I was ready to punch the girl. It was the nastiest thing I have ever seen someone do and there was no comeuppance for it. There were just way too many things with this for me to enjoy and all it did was make me angry.
I know, right? Considering Veronica was helping Sierra and how the hell did she expect Veronica to get out of the stupid situation she was in anyway? Jamie thought he was dating Veronica! (Haha, I typed Peter instead of Jamie).
THANK YOU!! That’s the thing that pissed me off the most. That though I could tell that Sierra was sorry for what she did, she never apologized for ANY of it. Veronica showed the most growth in the movie and she deserved Peter way more than Sierra did. Ugh. I’m still rolling my eyes at this movie. Just ugh.