The simple thought is: You’re not a teenager if you know what you’re doing, if you’re not confused, and if you’re focused. While those long list, at some point, distracts the plot from its main focus (how Nathan and Salma’s blooming romance makes Nathan a better person), those cramped issues are what make it even more grounded.

From juvenile delinquency, identity crisis, parental issue, feeling of neglected, peer pressure and self-acceptance, a compact list of teen angsts is tagged along. While Nathan and Salma’s relationship becomes the epicenter, Dear Nathan brings along some bigger issues to the frame. In the environment where real-life teens attempt to “do adult things” – like public display of affection or romantic couple trip, Dear Nathan exhibits how lo-fi teen romance makes the extraordinaire without patronizing. Simple things, like crush-texting problem, meet-cute, ‘normal’ first date, bookshop date, and many others, are portrayed sympathetically and naturally. In fact, it’s not the over-the-top character traits, which stitch the narrative together but it’s some little sparks – which might happen to everyone else – that do.

High school life is portrayed as natural as possible although, we must admit that a character’s larger-than-life backstory is a little too much. While there’s over-dramatization here and there, Indra Gunawan’s direction is surprisingly able to restraint the film from being a superfluous extravaganza. Its grounded accuracy is what makes it universally relatable, whether to teens or older generations it almost seems like people, at some time of their lives, are able to connect to the story in one way or another. On the surface, Dear Nathan – adapted from a sensation-laden Wattpad phenomenon – is exactly ‘that kind of coming-of-age romance.’ It’s cliché-ridden, saccharine-laced and unfocused but it’s grounded to reality and, more importantly, accurate. With all those traits, there’s this thought that this genre is designed solely to its target audiences – adolescences, mostly adolescent girls and, audiences outside that circle (adolescent boys and grown-ups) will find it tedious and delusional. People are aware that coming-of-age romance is prone to uninviting clichés and hormone-induced exaggeration.

Salma’s simple act of compassion, to which Nathan returns with a completely different act of valor, leads these two youngsters into the offspring of coming-of-age romance fraught with cute moments and teen angst at once. A bon-chic-bon-genre girl, Salma (Amanda Rawles) unexpectedly meets a violent, rich yet troubled greaser, Nathan (Jefri Nichol), after both come late for school with opposite reasons. Review: Dear Nathan is a clear-cut boy-meet-a-girl story.

Nonton film dear nathan