Rob Reiner (“Stand By Me” and “Misery”) does it again with “Flipped,” a coming-of-age story about a boy and a girl and everybody around them.
In the summer of 1957, Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) moves to a cute, white-picket-fence neighborhood.
The first person he meets is Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll), and immediately he dislikes her.
But she falls in love.
Bryce quickly learns that he is in a bad situation when he starts 2nd grade.
Juli is embarrassing, overbearing, and he can’t seem to ever get away from her.
Now switch to her point of view.
Juli takes it all as affection. She figures Bryce is too nervous to express his feelings toward her, so she does everything she can to be around him in hope that he will finally be comfortable around her.
Fast-forward to 8th grade. Bryce now likes Juli, while Juli can’t stand the sight of Bryce. In essence, the story has flipped.
His feelings for her seem insincere, though.
Bryce only takes interest in Juli when she begins to ignore him, and it seems that he only wants to be around her to make sure he’s forgiven.
And oddly, if she hadn’t started ignoring him, he never would’ve liked her in the first place.
The movie constantly flips between Bryce’s and Juli’s perspectives, which at times can be tiring. But it is also comical to see how they react toward each other and completely misunderstand what the other was saying.
Nonetheless, it’s a cute story about two kids in junior high, learning about the joys and pains of young love and friendship, set to a soundtrack of classy music from the 1950s and ’60s.
“Flipped” is a good story to learn a life lesson from.
