You’ve seen him as Peter Kavinsky, the human form of the heart-eyes emoji!
You’ve seen him as Jamey the catfishing victim!
Now see him as Johnny Sanders Jr, a young man who is pissed off at the ocean and also friends with Keanu Reeves!
Yes, if you can’t get enough of Noah Centineo, I have good news and more good news. There is another teen movie starring your boyfriend on Netflix, and it’s unbelievably bad.
Gloriously, sublimely, outrageously, I-want-to-build-an-entire-religion-around-it bad.
It’s the story of aspiring teenage filmmaker Penny, her “free-spirited” cousin Camilla, and Penny’s boyfriend Johnny (Centineo), who all escape to Keanu Reeves’ Malibu beach house for a weekend of self-discovery and surfing.
Johnny (whose name was inspired by Keanu’s Point Break character but also happens to share a name with the protagonist of The Room, just saying), we are repeatedly told, has a dead dad who died in a surfing accident. This is why he is pissed off at the ocean. (That’s a direct quote.)
His dead dad, who is dead, was best friends with the real-life movie star Keanu Reeves, who appears in the film.
It was directed by Alex Israel, who quite clearly wrote his own Wikipedia page, and it’s narrated by Goldie Hawn, for absolutely no reason that I can tell.
The dialogue feels like it was spat out by an AI fed on direct-to-DVD beach movies and the worst episodes of Nashville, and the performances had me checking for a Brazzers logo in the corner of the screen.
By the time you get to Johnny’s fully animated lucid-dream sequence soundtracked by Yazoo’s ‘Situation’, you feel like your brain is dripping out your ears.
Here are some quotes, without context, because the context does not improve them:
I mean, California’s a concept. It’s a way of saying “We’re not Nevada, and thank God for that.”
Somebody call a doctor, because this house is sick!
I’m ready to absorb some primal energy from the Earth’s core.
I love your earlobes!
[Holding a saxophone] I’ll finger, you blow.
It’s a bonkers mess, much like the terrifying faux-Mexican food Camilla keeps whipping up in Keanu’s kitchen. (We’re talking tacos made with Cheetos and honey, and guacamole topped with whipped cream from a can.)
What.
But unlike Noah Centineo’s agent, Noah Centineo can do no wrong. Even stuck with a script that makes Tommy Wiseau look like TS Eliot, he radiates sincerity. There is more human warmth in his adorable forehead crinkles than in every other performance in this film put together.
And yes, he does the nose scrunch.
Plus, it’s a surfing movie, so he’s shirtless a lot.
He also wears a tux…
Perfect.
And a leather jacket…
Iconic.
And this wetsuit.
Incredible.
To be clear, I am not endorsing watching this film. I am absolutely demanding that you gather your mates with the biggest Peter Kavinsky boners, crush some Cheetos into a bowl of guac, pound at least a bottle of wine each and watch this film on a loop until you have lost all sense of what makes a piece of art “good” or “bad” or until you pass out.