Film

Netflix’s New Rom-Com ‘Tall Girl’ Is About A Tall Girl, And Everyone Is Baffled

Seems like a bit of a stretch.

by Patrick Lenton  2 September 2019
Tall Girl Netflix trailer

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Netflix has a wonderful history with teen rom-coms — like the genuinely brilliant To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before — and their latest foray into this genre is the film Tall Girl, which finally explores the plight of girl who is a bit long, in a high school.

On one hand, high school is awful, and any point of difference is absolutely pounced upon. I was called “green shoes” for about a year, because I wore some vaguely green shoes once? Teens are garbage, and we should not encourage them.

On the other hand, revolving an entire complication on the girl being a bit tall is a bit of a stretch (see what I did there?).

The trailer is an absolute masterpiece of perspective shots, with the camera constantly beaming up on this mildly lengthy teen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film ends with her growing even larger, and rampaging through San Francisco, squashing Olsen twins willy-nilly with her enormous feet.

According to the story, she’s 6’1 and her life is TERRIBLE because of it. And in typical teen rom-com tropes, she gets a makeover, and a shot at a hot exchange student because of it. He is also tall. I feel like the trailer really misses a bunch of shots where she easily reaches things in cupboards?

I dunno — I’m taller than her. It’s a shame she couldn’t funnel her weakness into a strength — maybe she could have gotten a summer job as one of those bendy inflatable people outside of car dealerships.

Anyway, let’s watch the trailer.

So, yeah. Naturally, everyone fucking lost their shit, because it’s INHERENTLY FUNNY.

But people have also pointed out that if Netflix really wanted to write a story about an ACTUALLY oppressed minority, there’s a wealth of other subjects they could go with.