Genre: Romance/Teen/Comedy
Director: Chad Taylor
Writer: Chad Taylor
Cast: Alex Wolff, Garance Marillier, Madison Iseman, Haley Lu Richardson, Harry Styles, Charlie Plummer, Aaron Eckhart, Rebecca Romijn
Plot: On a summer night in June 2007, Chad (Alex Wolff) and Sara (Madison Iseman) share a hammock under the moonlight. After some small talk, there is a lingering silence before Chad says awkwardly excuses himself to go to the bathroom. There, he texts with his friend Ashton who tells him what to say. When he returns, he confidently converses before looking Sara in the eye and asking if they are official. She squeezes his hand tighter and matches his eyes and affirms as long he doesn’t run to the bathroom every time it gets serious between them. Chad gives off a goofy grin as the opening credits roll as we see him texting his friends, telling them he and Sara are officially dating.
In August, Chad is starting his sophomore year of high school. He has found his comfort zone in his little Midwestern suburban life with his tight-knit friends group of charmer Evan (Harry Styles), class clown Cheese (Charlie Plummer) (a nickname earned from his last name being Kraft), and Ashton (Haley Lu Richardson) – a tomboy who has been a family friend of Chad’s since he was young. They are a part of the popular kids in school, especially now that Chad is dating Sara – one of the richest girls in town. On the Friday before classes start, Chad has dinner at Sara’s house – meeting her parents Tom (Aaron Eckhart) and Jane (Rebecca Romijn) and is nervous around them as he really wants to impress both Sara and her parents.
Complicating things is the arrival of Melanie (Garance Marillier), a French foreign exchange student being hosted by Sara’s family. It becomes immediately obvious that there is a clash between Sara’s pristine preppiness and the edginess of Melanie. This personality clash is accentuated by Sara being the one having to guide Melanie around school and practically spend all day with her. At first this annoys Chad as he wants to spend as much time with Sara as possible but upon seeing the stress this causes her, he vows to assist in guiding Melanie through American high school life.
When Evan throws a party while his parents are out of town, Sara’s parents insist on her taking Melanie with her. At the party, various drinking games are played while a pop-music radio station blasts in the background. With Chad introducing her, Melanie seems to mesh well with everyone at the party – especially Ashton and Cheese, who begins to take a liking to her. Sara grows irritated at the attention Chad is devoting to Melanie and demands he spend time with her. During this time, Melanie grows bored with the radio and plugs in her iPod – which blasts harder rock songs that the kids would classify as emo. Things become awkward and someone changes the music back, making both Melanie and Sara deeply embarrassed.
While Melanie exiles herself alone in Evan’s bedroom, Chad tells Sara he is going to get a refill but really goes to check on her. At first she wants to be alone, but Chad becomes inquisitive about what else she has on her iPod. He admits that, unlike the other kids, he kinda likes that music and wants to hear more – but he is adamant that she not tell anyone what he just said. She offers to split her headphones and they both share playful laughter as they jam to the songs on the bed. Evan and a girl bursts in, apologizing at first but then saying how he needs the room. Evan gives Chad a suggestive look (as if to say: niiice), but Chad shakes his head no to deny anything happening. When Chad gets home, he briefly chats with Sara on MySpace before telling her goodnight and sending Melanie a friend request.
Chad wakes up happy in the morning when he learns that she accepted it and plays the song featured on her profile as he gets ready for the day. A few weeks later, the popular kids hold a weekend bonfire. Cheese takes everyone by surprise by asking Melanie to the Homecoming dance (which she accepts). Chad asks Sara if he has to formally ask her to the dance and she tells him technically no, but she would be really happy if he did it here and now. And so he follows in Cheese’s footsteps and makes a grand announcement asking Sara to the dance, who is happy that the attention is back on her. Melanie seems bummed by this development, but still happy that Cheese asked her.
Later in the night, Chad and Ashton lay on the bed of one of the trucks and gaze at the stars. He asks her who she thinks she’ll go to the dance with, and she is unsure. When he asks who she wants to ask him, there is a lingering silence (implying her crush on Chad) but she says maybe Evan. Chad agrees that would be rad. When she asks him who he wants to go with, he acts offended – as it’s already obvious he is going with Sara. He then realizes that his affection towards Melanie is at least partially obvious from the outside, but he continues to downplay it. Their arms touch briefly, to which Chad pulls back and puts his arm around her in a friend type of way.
At school, Evan, Ashton and Cheese come to Chad to tell him they are skipping lunch and P.E. to walk to the nearby movie theater and see Superbad. Sara, never one to break the rules at school, is adamant that they not but Melanie thinks it sounds fun. Amidst pressure from Sara, Chad turns down their offer while the four of them go. At lunch, Sara wants to see what Chad is listening to and scoffs when she sees that it is Melanie’s type of music. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom, but instead sprints to the theater after only have missed the first ten minutes of the movie. He takes a seat next to Melanie, who is happy to see he is there.
When they return to school and go to class, Ashton, Cheese, and Melanie are pulled out of class by the vice principal for skipping the previous period. Chad is confused, especially why he wasn’t pulled, and he is about to get up to join them but Sara holds him back. She tells him she told them that Chad fell ill in lunch and that’s why he missed P.E. (implying she told on the others when grilled).
On the eve of homecoming, Chad shocks his friends by dying his hair bleach blonde reminiscent of My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way. Melanie is obviously amused by this and compliments him on it. Chad picks up Cheese and then Sara and Melanie on his way to the dance. At the Homecoming dance, Cheese drinks the alcohol from his flask too fast and vomits in the bathroom, with Evan and Chad helping him clean up. Realizing this has left Melanie alone, Chad goes back out to the dance floor but she is not there. He and Sara slow dance while Chad constantly looks over her shoulder for Melanie.
After the dance, Chad and Sara find Melanie sleeping in the back of Chad’s car, listening to her iPod. Sara actually comments that she finds it adorable, albeit in a partially condescending way. The group all get together and Evan comes up with the idea that since Melanie is of drinking age in France, they should see if she can convince the liquor store clerk to sell her alcohol. Sara, and Chad to a degree, are apprehensive to this but Melanie says she is cool with it. As everyone watches on nervously, it is a success and the party is on.
At the after-party at a friend's farmhouse out in the country, Evan and Ashton put Cheese to bed as he still feels ill. Chad and Sara passionately kiss in private but he can’t seem to get in the mood. Sara storms off, upon which Chad wanders off and finds Melanie drinking by herself. Chad approaches her, taking her hand to guide the bottle down, and passionately kisses her. She tells him she can’t even remember how long she’s been waiting for him to do that, making him laugh. When he spots Ashton alone in the kitchen, he promises Melanie he will be right back.
When Chad tells Ashton that he just kissed Melanie, she tells him she obviously knows – as does anyone else in the vicinity. When he asks her what he should do next, she runs her hand through his hair, messing it up and emphasizes that he be himself. He gives her a hug then makes a detour to the bathroom before heading back to Melanie. It is locked so he goes outside to do his business and is shocked to find Sara making out with Evan. He pushes his friend and asks him what the hell he’s doing – prompting an upset Sara to go back inside. Evan tries to calm Chad down and insists that he doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. He says he knows Chad doesn’t want to hear it now but he has to make up his mind about what he wants – if he likes Melanie, choose Melanie but don’t string Sara along as he does it. Plus, she’s the hottest girl in school – so when she wants to make out, you make out (a line that does not soothe Chad’s anger much).
They hear a commotion inside and it turns out the cops have arrived. Evan panics and tells Chad to run with him as they go out into the barren cornfield behind the house. They lay flat on the ground and it works as the cops check the backyard but can’t see much beyond that. As they lay trying to stay silent, Evan whispers an apology to Chad. Everyone underage inside the house gets citations from the police.
Sara’s parents scold her about what this will look like for her college applications and she points the blame to Melanie for buying the alcohol. Although Melanie denies that any of it was her idea, she admits that she bought the alcohol and Sara’s parents are furious. Worried about the bad influence she is on their daughter, the family make an arrangement for Melanie to move in with Ashton’s family for the remainder of her stay (only a couple of weeks at this point).
Chad is preparing to confess to Sara about kissing Melanie but she breaks up with him before he can. She apologizes about the Evan incident and echoes pretty much every sentiment Evan had already laid out. Chad apologizes to her for trying to figure out both who he is and what he wants – and leaving her tangled in the middle of it all. She says she’ll see him around and they go their separate ways.
He talks to Melanie after school, them both holding hands. They kiss again but she pulls away, looking sad. When he asks her what’s wrong, she opens up about how afraid she was to leave home for somewhere 4,000 miles away, where she would always be an outsider. Then her clash with her host family only exacerbated those worries. And now she has feelings for Chad but even then they must confront the impracticality of loving someone thousands miles away with an ocean in between. When Chad tears up and tries to reason with her that they could work it out, she tells him no but caresses his cheek and says they should be happy they met. She reasons that Chad was always more attracted to the idea of Melanie than the actual person, as it allowed him to embrace his true self and break out of chasing something he was not. Chad denies this, telling her his feelings are real, but he comes to realize she has a point because of how he thinks of Sara. He was always attracted more to the idea of the beautiful, rich girl for what it meant to his social status – never caring about who Sara as a person. And now it has taken Melanie to realize that is not what he truly wants. He has always admired Melanie’s ability to not care what anyone else thinks, the opposite of his own feelings. She smiles and tells him none of that changes how they actually feel about each other. She says she loves him and he responds “Je t’aime” – his first attempt at French, and butchering it a bit. They laugh at his feeble attempt, agree he stick to English and kiss.
One month later, in December, Chad and friends are at the airport as Melanie is set to go back to France. When they get a moment of one-on-one time, Chad and Melanie embrace for an extended period of time. She tells him how wonderful he and his friends have made her time in America and how she’ll never forget him. He vows the same. From his back pocket, he reveals that he has a Christmas gift for her. After opening it, he explains that it is a CD of he burnt of some of their favorite songs with a special surprise on the end. She is mad at herself for not getting him a gift but does leave him with one last message – perhaps he should start to consider Ashton as someone who could be more than a friend. He seems opposed at first, but smiles when looking towards Ashton’s way and realizes she might be right – given how similar she is to Melanie rather than Sara. They kiss goodbye one last time and she promises they will meet again some day.
The next day, Chad fixes his MySpace Top 8 (a collection of eight friends the person chooses to display on their profile – indicating how much you like them) – removing Sara altogether and adding Evan back in to the top row to join Cheese, Melanie, and Ashton. He clicks save but then goes back to it and puts Ashton in the number one spot and saves again. He then clicks on her profile to send a message. As he usually relies on her to help him talk to girls, he is stuck on what to say – but smiling while he thinks. As he contemplates, he picks up his guitar and starts to play an acoustic cover of the song Melanie awkwardly played at the party. We see cross-cutting shots of Melanie in France, listening to the final track of the CD with a smile on her face.
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