My brain feels like a popsicle that’s been left out on the sidewalk. All mushy and a little bit stupid. I just finished *Love on Trend* on Tubi and I don't know who I am anymore.
I think I started watching it as a joke. You know how it is. You're scrolling through Tubi at 11 PM, past all the low-budget horror movies and questionable action films, and you see a title like *Love on Trend*. You see the poster, which is literally just two attractive people looking at each other over a laptop, and you think, "Okay, I'll bite. I'll give it 15 minutes." And then the ads finish. And you're in. You're trapped.
The plot is… a plot. It’s about this girl, Chloe, who is a "fashion influencer" (of course she is) and her whole brand is being "authentic" while she wears sponsored clothes. And she falls for this guy, Liam, who's a "real" designer who works with his hands and believes in "timeless craftsmanship." You see where this is going. You saw it coming from the first frame. I saw it coming. And yet I watched the whole thing. I sat here on my couch, under my favorite fleece blanket, and I consumed it like a bag of stale chips.
There's this one line of dialogue that is just… seared into my frontal lobe. Chloe is giving a heartfelt speech to Liam and she says, with a completely straight face, "My followers don't just follow my fashion, they follow my heart… and my affiliate links." I literally paused the movie. I just sat there in the silence of my living room, the TV frozen on her earnest, beautiful face, and I whispered "no" to the empty room. My dog, Gus, lifted his head from the floor and gave me a look of pure concern. It was the single most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard in my life. I thought I hated it. I thought it was the worst line of dialogue ever written.
But now that I'm typing this… was it genius? Is the movie secretly a satire? I don't know. I'm giving it way too much credit, aren't I? I think I loved that part, but now that I'm typing this... was it actually kind of dumb? I don't know. My brain is broken.
It made me think of this one time in college I tried to go viral. There was this dumb dance trend on whatever app we were using then, and I spent like, two hours in my dorm room trying to film it. I kept messing up, tripping over my own feet, feeling like a complete idiot. And I remember just stopping and looking at myself in the camera on my phone, this sweaty, awkward mess, and thinking, "Who am I trying to be?" I deleted the video and never tried again. Watching Chloe contort herself for her "authentic" brand felt exactly like that. A moment of profound, second-hand embarrassment.
And the Tubi ads! Oh my god, the Tubi ads. They would hit at the most inopportune moments. Right in the middle of a tense, silent argument, BAM, a commercial for a personal injury lawyer screaming "HAVE YOU BEEN IN AN ACCIDENT?!" It completely shattered any semblance of mood the movie was trying to build. It was jarring and awful and honestly, it made the whole experience even better. It was like the universe was telling me, "This is not high art. Do not take this seriously."
So why did I watch it? Why did I see it through to the inevitable, predictable, cheesy-as-hell ending where they launch a clothing line that combines "viral trends with timeless style"? I think… I think my brain just needed a break. I needed to watch something where I knew exactly what was going to happen. Where the good guys win, the bad guys (her mean-girl rival) learn a lesson, and they kiss in the rain. It’s comfort food for the brain. It’s the movie equivalent of mac and cheese from a box. You know it’s not good for you, but it’s warm and it’s easy and it fills the void.
I feel no shame. Okay, maybe a little shame.
5/10.
-Alex
Trailer English - https://youtu.be/CQwyvibdakU?si=XaQT6XqM6uLA8mS