When you have a crush, it feels like your entire world has changed. Your palms get sweaty when you see them, your stomach twists into knots and you can’t find the right words to greet them. Whether it’s the boy from chemistry class or the girl who lives next door, you can’t wait to see them again. You walk past their locker a million times just in case they are there and you blush every time they smile at you.
However, having a crush is not always what it’s cracked up to be. Oftentimes, you’ll find that your crush is not interested in the same things as you. This can be frustrating, especially if you’re so into them that you can’t help but imagine future plans with them. This is where the difference between having a crush and being in love comes into play. Crushing someone is usually temporary and you can still feel good about yourself even if they don’t reciprocate your feelings. But when you’re in love, it takes longer to go from a crush to a relationship and you can’t imagine not having them in your life.
In a world where high school students are so much more likely to indulge in casual sex and recreational drugs than ever before, Hulu’s Crush sets its sights on a shockingly low bar for the high-school romantic comedy genre. The film, starring Moana actress Rowan Blanchard, delivers the kind of candy-colored spin on teenage romance most people might expect from Disney Channel TV shows but with a cast of young actors that spills over with overactive hormones and selective maturity.
While Crush has one visual flourish that’s worthy of praise — when Gabby walks into Paige’s line of vision, the screen glows with sprays of water colors that envelop her body — this is its only attempt at conveying the kind of hormonally driven teenager emotions it purports to depict. And unfortunately, it’s not nearly enough to save the film from its tame, predictable narrative and hammy performances.
Participants in our open-ended responses cited fun and excitement as the most common reasons they enjoyed having a crush. Other positive reasons included boosting their self-esteem, having fun with fantasy and imagination, and ancillary improvements to their primary relationships (see Table 2). More rarely, crushes were thought of as a source of anxiety or a negative aspect of their life.