Sex Appeal: A semi-sweet, ultimately unsatisfying teen comedy

The “teen rom-com” genre isn’t often lauded for being non-formulaic. You have a boy. A girl. An obstacle to overcome. A grand gesture. A big, sloppy kiss at the end. The Hulu original film ‘Sex Appeal’ combines most of these tropes while also trying (and ultimately failing) to spice it up with a 21st-century twist.

Let’s start with the premise: It’s… odd. Pretty high schooler Avery (Mika Abdalla) is a book smart, school-obsessed senior facing two giant hurdles. First, she must create an app to win a school contest that has zero ground rules and, second, she needs to figure out how to please her long-distance hot-brainiac boyfriend Casper (Mason Versaw) after he suggests the two of them have sex. I mean, who among us, am I right?

To make life a little easier, Avery decides to kill two birds with one stone and combine both tasks by a) getting super good at sex stuff and b) using all her newfound sexy knowledge to create an app that teaches people how to have great sex. Remember, this is for a high school project.

During her research, Avery employs the help of some more sexually-experienced sources, and these folks provide a bulk of the film’s comic relief. They include her three mother figures: Ma Kim, Ma Deb, and Mama Suze (played by Rebecca Henderson, Margaret Cho, and Fortune Feimster respectively). She also recruits her BFF, who happens to be a very cute boy named Larson (Jake Short); a boy she placed firmly in the friend zone several years prior. Larson agrees to help “experiment” with ways to please her boyfriend and therefore make her app project a success. We know where this is going, right?

Stylistically, the film looks slick. It does, however, rely heavily on silly dream sequences which work to a point but become overused and tired pretty fast. Abdalla and Short do have great chemistry, and it provides the movie with a couple of much-needed magic moments. Still, I would have loved to see some more interaction between the two of them. Their sparks are palpable, but sadly under-utilized.

Sex Appeal succeeds on a simple level in that it brings together two love interests in a charming, albeit really weird way. By the end of the film, though, the app subplot feels like a strange, thrown-in afterthought, and we as viewers are left… well… unsatisfied.

The teen romance genre has been through many iterations over the years, and Sex Appeal borrows from many of them. Subtle, it’s not – the raunch is laid on thick from almost the first act. Viewers looking for some mindless entertainment might have a good time, but if you’re looking for an intelligent comedy with well-developed characters, Sex Appeal won’t be your bag.