‘Tall Girl 2’ doesn’t measure up
March 4, 2022
While many may prefer watching movies that they will actually enjoy, some movies are just so bad they’re good, and that is just the case for Netflix’s new release: “Tall Girl 2.” Spoilers are in this article, but since the movie is almost unbearably cheesy and predictable, none will be a surprise.
The premise of the movie is Jodi Kreyman, the titular tall girl, (Ava Michelle) getting the lead in the school play. As she struggles with the pressure of being popular and performing well, she also loses her relationship with her boyfriend, Jack Dunkleman (Griffin Gluck) — otherwise called Dunkin.
“Tall Girl 2” is, of course, the sequel to “Tall Girl” (a creative name, I know), that no one asked for. The point of the first movie was to show love to girls who are taller than average and expose the difficulties in that. While the first movie already failed in its supposed mission, “Tall Girl 2” discredited that whole dilemma when all it took was a speech at Jodi’s prom to make the whole school love her. All of her problems seemed to disappear — except for the classic trope of the bully who has been torturing her for her whole life.
This bully, Kimmy, has a character arc that really develops out of nothing. Her friend, Schnipper, all of a sudden has a good heart and pushes Kimmy to stop bullying Jodi. Kimmy, after little resistance, finds the goodness in her heart to just stop and even gives up her opportunity at taking back the lead role in the school play.
Since Jodi’s issue of being tall has completely disappeared, she now has the problem of being in the school play and not being able to handle her role. The movie tries really hard to be relatable but just does the complete opposite. At one point, Jodi has an anxiety attack because she doesn’t think she will be able to perform well and is feeling a lot of pressure, but somehow this anxiety attack washes away instantly with her mom just telling her to say everything is okay. The movie does a horrible job at representing everything it tries to.
It also makes the main character extremely unlikable. We are supposed to be rooting for this character who is going through hardships, but she completely botches her relationship with the one guy who never looked at her differently because of her height and then expects him to apologize for her mistakes. She abandons him on their anniversary to go practice for the school play. And after the breakup, she kisses her co-star who she had previously had flirty moments with. There is nothing to salvage the actions of the main character and the plot makes you completely lose any respect one may have had for her. Yet, of course, they get back together at the end when they really seem like a horrible match.
Besides the horrible plot of the movie, Jodi’s height is also extremely exaggerated. The actor who plays her is about 6 feet tall, yet they manage to make her look 7 feet tall by making the rest of the cast shorter than average. The movie seemed as though it should belong to YouTube stars rather than an actual movie streaming platform like Netflix.
Netflix should be making new seasons of the shows they keep canceling rather than producing an unwelcome sequel to a movie that was widely disliked.