Belated film reviews: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Before we go any further, a spoiler alert is in order.

A few things you need to know about me before we embark on a list of film reviews of sorts: a, I rarely ever see films when they come out and b, my taste in cinema revolves around teenage flicks and rom-coms. I know, I know. I'm an adult, I'm not the target audience for any of these films anymore. Truth is, I find comfort and enjoyment in them unlike anything else I experience through other genres of filmed media.

A few years ago, I found various lists of those films online, based around Disney Channel originals, teenage films, and rom-coms in general. I have slowly, but surely, I guess, been working my way through them. The latest installment of it, which I watched last night on Netflix, is Naomi And Ely's No Kiss List, released in 2015 and based on a novel of the same name and written by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. (A fact which, admittedly, I wasn't aware of at the time of viewing.)

Naomi and Ely, both eighteen years old, have grown up in the heart of New York City and have lived in the same building, next door to each other their whole lives. That's one part of the premise that I KNOW child-me and teenage-me would have adored. Turning up at my friends' doorsteps is something I have never had. They were kids who never had backyards, despite New York City having a large concentration of parks- it's not like Central Park is big or anything, but apparently, Naomi and Ely don't do the East Side, for a reason that is never disclosed at any point. Instead, they built a blanket fort type of situation on the top of the staircase of their building, which doesn't seem like a health and safety risk at all. They are inseparable, which is portrayed as part-cute, part-a little weird around the edges. There is a scene where Ely goes out for a drink with someone he knows, and Naomi's upset about it, so she just waits in his bed until he comes back. That's what normal people do, right? Their families are kind of (entirely) dysfunctional. Naomi's father cheated on her mother with one of Ely's mothers, and then, Naomi's father left entirely, leaving his teenage daughter with a heavily depressed mother and no support of any kind, whether it is financial or moral. On their side of the corridor, Ely's mothers are trying to work it all out, but as we can see in the one family scene of the film, it's not working very well. If I had a teenage film and TV show bingo at hand, I could definitely tick off "absentee/dysfunctional parents" and take a shot.

As the film title informs us, Naomi and Ely have a "no-kiss list," which is, quite simply, a list of boys they are both attracted to, so they become off-limits for both of them. For some reason, they have customised a whole art journal for the list, which seems to be about six names long and covers one singular page. Naomi also seems to carry the notebook around a strange amount of time. Does it matter this much? Do you need to reference check boys you're allowed to kiss daily? Surely, if you've written someone's name on the list, you know who they are? There is a scene during which Naomi drops all her stuff in the lobby, and is embarrassed when Gabriel, the doorman, hands her a tampon. I would personally be more self-conscious if someone found my no-kiss list slash art journal, but, each to their own, I guess. It transpires quite early on that Naomi is very much in love with Ely, and I guess they could have said it differently than with her internal monologue going "I'm okay with gay. But not for Ely." It's all too rare to find a film whose main character is part of the LGBTQ+ community, so there was no need to try and ruin it like that.

Parts of the film are adorable. The cinematography and the soundtrack are great, in all their cute and somewhat hipster teen film glory. Naomi And Ely's No Kiss List has been heavily compared to Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist, as they are both based on novels by the same authors, and the cinematography and soundtrack are the most similar aspects between them, in my opinion. The fashion is cool. The concept of everyone living in the same building and having storylines between them is really, really cool- that's one thing I would have loved a film about.

But some parts of it are so entirely weird and confusing that I ended up not really knowing whether I liked it or not.

• There are two teenagers in this film named Bruce, who are kindly referred to as Bruce I and Bruce II. In the twenty-first century, who still names their child Bruce?
• Most of the synopses of the film you can find online state that Naomi and Ely's friendship is tested when they both fall for the same guy. "Falling" is a bit of a stretch when it comes to Naomi's side of the coin. She doesn't seem to care one bit for Bruce II. His only purpose in her life is to be here when Ely isn't, and she seems repulsed at the idea of kissing him. Bruce is a sweet nerd who worships the ground she walks on and makes her the muse for his film, so, he doesn't even have that much of an issue with the fact that his girlfriend brought her best friend, with who she is a lot more physically comfortable than she is with him, out on a date with them. In some twisted turn of events, Ely ends up making out, then sneaking around with Bruce after they have bonded over comic books. It felt unannounced- Ely lets Bruce in because Naomi is late, they talk about X-Men, and, boom, fireworks.
• The basic plot of the story is that Naomi and Ely's friendship is unbreakable, the forever, one in a million type of affair. Their lives revolve around each other. He lets her sleep in his bed when he's not home. He talks about marrying her, even though he's gay. But he makes out with her boyfriend, and tries to justify himself with "but he wasn't on the no-kiss list." He's her boyfriend. Sure, she treats him like the dirt underneath her shoe, but at the end of the day, he's her boyfriend. It's obvious. You don't make out with your best friend's boyfriend, never mind how they treat them, never mind if you've put it in writing in your notebook.
• Why does a very adult doorman have a crush on a teenage girl? Gabriel admits to having a thing for Naomi ever since her high school graduation. That's just going to be a no from me.
• Naomi has a friend called Robin, who is referred to as a "back up best friend" because she isn't Ely, and Naomi seems to compare every relationship she has with any other human being to him. There is a scene during which they are both hanging out at the library. Naomi asks Robin what sex is like, and then Robin, for some reason, shocked out her mind, gasps "YOU'RE A VIRGIN?" Plenty of eighteen-year-olds are virgins. Get over it.
• Is Monique Coleman, of High School Musical fame, going to be the "nerd who falls in love with some dude and consequently stops being a nerd" in every film she's cast in, for the rest of her life?
• There are a lot of eighteen-year-olds going out for alcoholic beverages, hanging out in bars and clubs, and never being checked for ID in a country where the legal drinking age is 21.
• There is a heartbreaking amount of times when Naomi tries to call her father, who doesn't seem to give a crap, and it is mentioned that he doesn't always pay the alimony. Naomi's mother hasn't worked in years due to heavy depression and a barely touched upon anti-depressant addiction. They don't always have electricity in the flat. Naomi's only eighteen and she's very much abandoned to her own devices on that one, and it's only vaguely resolved when, on top of being a student, Naomi takes up a job at the local cupcake bakery, so she can provide for her and her mom, because it doesn't seem like her mom is going to for a long time, despite that bizarre "realization that the father's gone" scene.

Overall, Naomi And Ely's No Kiss List is a cute film, and I had a good time watching it. I would like to read the book. Had I seen it when I was a little younger and less damaged, I would have loved it. Teenage me absolutely adored the concept of having best friends you are physically comfortable with and who you know, deep in your core, will be here for everything in your life, the good and the bad. I could even love New York City again, even though the place terrifies me to no end.

But I'm not a kid anymore, and I'm probably too damaged, so my eyes only focus on the weird parts and how obviously toxic and co-dependent Naomi and Ely's friendship is.