Written and directed by Sarah Kambe Holland, after coming out to her parents, an Asian American teenage girl takes off on a road trip to meet her online crush with the help of her nerdy best friend. Starring: Sabrina Jieafa, Louis Tomeo, Asahi Hirano, Ayden Lee, Kelley Mauro and J. Scott Browning.
Some teen movies are made for everyone and some are made specifically for them, Egghead & Twinkie feels like one that was created for a young audience. Especially since diving right in, it taps into the newest generation’s obsession with the 1990s and a touch of 1980s. It also follows the type of tone which you’d expect for that era, despite taking place in modern day, giving some intensely cheesy vibes. That means, you pretty much get exactly what you expect out of it, it’s got a lot of optimism and colour, with plenty of naivety. It’s a shame that the use of animation doesn’t get more involved, it was a nice touch and adds a good amount of energy. Had it been more closely weaved throughout the film it could have potentially given more of a Scott Pilgrim vs. The World feel but it only appears sporadically. As it stands it’s much closer to the Love Simon arena, although it doesn’t embrace emotion as strongly.
That feels like a key element which is holding Egghead & Twinkie back, it’s so strongly targeting a young audience that it isn’t opening itself up to a bigger sincerity and emotion. It does make an attempt to do so but everything always feels so light, that the impact can’t grow. There’s also quite a few predictable inclusions which similarly hold it back, particularly the friend-zone equation. Especially considering Egghead’s (Louis Tomeo) character doesn’t feel convincing enough as being romantically interested in Twinkie (Sabrina Jieafa). So that theme of the story is taking energy away from building a bigger sense of humour or adventure feel to their road trip. Essentially, it needed to enhance the comedy or emotion, not even necessarily both, to make it feel more unique, as its personality feels overly familiar.
A big majority of the charm it has to offer is coming from Sabrina Jieafa’s performance as Twinkie. There were emotional issues there to explore further that the film only scratches the surface of, self-identity, race, adoption and sexuality. It’s still a great package and Jieafa does a wonderful job of bringing those crises to life in an endearing and sweet manner but the film could have delved deeper. The personality that Jieafa creates would make a perfect pairing for the characters from Erin’s Guide to Kissing Girls but Egghead & Twinkie doesn’t quite manage to capture that same sense of fun. Louis Tomeo’s performance as Egghead has its moments, especially later in the film when his romantic interest gets pushed to one side. However, outside of that, it doesn’t feel as though he’s adding much personality or energy to the film, his character ends up more like a means to an end to serve Twinkie’s journey.
Egghead & Twinkie is extremely sweet and cheesy, an easy going story of coming out and the young, gay experience. However, it does feel exclusively made for young viewers and it can be quite predictable. It’s missing out on building a bigger personality or individuality to set it apart. Sabrina Jieafa leads the film with a lot of charm and puppy love but without a larger sense of humour or unique energy, it’s simply not giving us enough that we haven’t seen before.
FilmCarnage.com 