Addison Rae is one of TikTok’s biggest names. In 2019, she started making videos on TikTok and rapidly gained a huge number of followers. She currently has 84.3 million followers on TikTok and 39.9 million followers on Instagram. The 20-year-old made her screen debut with Netflix’s He’s All That, starring Tanner Buchanan. The movie was a remake of the 1999 movie She’s All That, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook.
The TikTok sensation portrays the female protagonist, Padgett Sawyer, a social media influencer and high school senior, who fakes her way through high school and the internet. Padgett is seen lying about her address in front of her friends and about her life to her fans on the internet to be able to fit in with the popular crowd at her school. She dumps her famous boyfriend after she finds out he’s cheating on her, and makes a bet with her friends that she will turn Cameron Kweller, who is usually very shy and withdrawn, into the next prom king. Played by Tanner Buchanan, Cameron finds out about the bet as Padgett begins to realize she has feelings for him.
The plot of the entire movie was very predictable and extremely parallel with the 1999 version. The movie felt uninspired and simply lacked depth. At no point during the movie will viewers feel like they won’t be able to pull themselves away from the screen in fear of not being able to understand the rest of it. The movie had a very basic makeover scene, like every teenage romcom ever, and a classic jealous best friend, played by Madison Pettis, who drives a wedge between the two leads. Unsurprisingly, the movie ended on a very predictable note and anyone who watched the trailer could definitely guess what would happen at the end of the movie.
There were quite a few elements of surprise during the movie, however, a major one being reality star Kourtney Kardashian’s cameo in the movie. Rae and Kardashian’s recent friendship has taken the internet by surprise and has gained quite a bit of attention, but the fans were not too happy to see the BFFs share a screen and deprecated Kardashian’s acting skills. Another element of surprise was the casting of Rachael Leigh Cook, who was the female lead in the original movie, as Anna Sawyer, Padgett’s mother. But she received almost as much screen time as an extra on the sets.
However, the biggest surprise out of all these was definitely Rae’s acting skills. I, personally, did not have the highest expectations for the TikTok star’s acting. But I was quite surprised to see how well she actually adjusted to her role and did justice to the character. She may not be the best actor of all time, but she could definitely make a career of acting. My overall reaction to the movie was very neutral, and I would say it was an average watch at best. The storyline was quite foreseeable and expected. If Rae wants to make it in the film industry, I would suggest she begin by choosing a better movie script to work on.
Image: Netflix
