If you are looking for a good, heartfelt film that you can watch on Netflix, look up “Tall Girl” directed by Nzingha Stewart. This film is about a high school girl who is 6’1 and made fun of due to her height. The film showcases an insecurity that many young girls and women have, but it doesn’t end there.

This film is unlike any high school film I have ever seen, in which the protagonist already has a guy madly in love with her at the start of the film. However, the film presents the insecurity as her hold up; she needs someone taller than her. She keeps herself in this worm hole until a gorgeous Swedish foreign exchange student comes into her life and changes everything.

With an all-star cast including Angela Kinsey (The Office) and Sabrina Carpenter (The Hate U Give) as supporting characters, this film will be nothing you’ve seen before.

Even the music was phenomenal, including songs from artists like Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, Katy Perry, Post Malone, and Taylor Swift. With great music came a great message to its audience.

Even though Jodi, played by Ava Michelle, was insecure in her own skin for most of the film, the audience still saw glimpses of her confidence and independence when she breaks normal standards of dating.

The only thing that felt a little staged and stereotypical is how the film represents Swedish people. The audience is told that all Swedes are tall, blonde and beautiful. However, it depends on the person. The film makes it seem that Sweden is filled with blonde models and if you don’t look like that, you aren’t Swedish.

The film also includes a beautiful bond between father and daughter. Even though throughout most of the film Jodi and her father struggle to connect, they still connect on one thing, music. The piano and Jodi’s large hands embody who she is. She states that men are more likely to become pianists because of their larger hands and it comes full circle that she would learn to play piano because her dad plays.

Even though this romantic comedy focuses on first loves, the importance of family is still a huge part of the plot. Carpenter’s character is a pageant queen, but that doesn’t make her an evil sister. Her experience allows her to help Jodi become a new woman and need her skills of being in pageants and knowing how to be pretty not for her own gain, but for her sister to use in her search for love.

Overall, this is a great film, and definitely not as cheesy as I thought it would be. Not many other films focus on tallness as an ugly trait. However, this film used it in a way that this might be her insecurity, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be beautiful.   

I give this film a 4/5.