Chemical Hearts – Romance with a Sliver of Twist

Chemical Hearts by Richard Tanne is an adaption of Krystal Sutherland’s young adult novel Our Chemical Hearts. Henry Page (Austin Abrams) is an aspiring writer who loves to mend broken pottery. But as nothing interesting has happened with him, he is frustrated that he has nothing to write about. But his inspiration arrives in the form of Grace Town (Lili Reinhart) the new girl in school who walks with a cane. Grace is an intelligent and calm person with a dark past. 

Henry and Grace first meet when they are assigned as co-editors of their school newspaper and are forced to work together. As Chemical Hearts is from Henry’s Point of view, we can see that he is intrigued by Grace’s guarded personality and intelligence and keeps on pursuing her. As time goes on they began to hang out which develops into some kind of relationship. 

There are many tragedies in Grace’s past including her disabling injury. As Grace is not sharing her story all at once, Henry most of the time is left hurt and confused as he feels she has been withholding information. We may think that Henry is here to help Grace Love or Trust again and Grace is here to help him learn, grow or change but we realize that we are wrong as the true look of the picture is revealed. 

Chemical Hearts is a messy movie that deals with the chaos and confusion of teenagers going through love, heartbreak for the first time. As Henry’s sister is a neurosurgeon, she explains how all this confusion and chaos is making an impact on Henry’s body and nervous system. 

The secondary characters barely register. Henry has two best friends who aren’t even there as friends. They only act as a background noise just like Henry’s parents. 

Lili Reinhart as Grace has done a beautiful job. It is refreshing to see a girl character who is not perfect or doesn’t have it all and has her imperfections and flaws. As the movie is progressing you can see that Grace is an absolute mess and is in a very uncertain state. Grace is resisting getting close to Henry because she does not want to be known as her wounds are too deep for her to handle. 

Abrams is in his best state when he is forced to deal with Grace’s unpredictable nature. It is interesting to watch him as he is paying close attention to her trying to make sense of her. Chemical Hearts portrays a realistic picture of love showing that people are not compelled to feel for you, as you feel for them. People can love you how the way they want. But even though it is a lovely movie it fails to capture the heart of the viewer.