Winter Spring Summer or Fall is a pleasantly low drama romance film… perhaps a little too low stakes but also that works for me. Probably could have used more such-and-such… just not sure what that such and such would be without going overboard. Yeah, I’m all the way mixed up.

It stars Jenna Ortega and Percy Hynes White who meet in their senior year of high school. She’s super smart and heading for Harvard, he’s taking a gap year. She has no room for boys.. but he’s cute and persistent with floppy hair and smile.

I’m happy this flick is just a simple romance… that it doesn’t have the usual generic gimmicks. Nobody is lying or hiding anything, there aren’t hokey misunderstandings… just two pretty people slowly falling for each other.

But maybe it goes too hard at being soft and pleasant. There are misunderstanding and some inevitable drama… it’s not totally cloying and toothless. But I got a little bored in the second half waiting for the machine to rotate back to the inevitable.

It’s cute and charming though so I certainly don’t hate it. Jenna Ortega especially brings her usual self to the role. I’m less familiar with White but he seems convincing too. It’s worth watching if you want low stakes romance.

Score: 79