Netflix’s ‘The Perfect Date’ Review: Laura Marano Is a New Kind of Romantic Comedy Heroine

Something happens within the first 10 minutes of Netflix's The Perfect Date, streaming now, that made me realize this isn't your standard romantic comedy. It's when Celia (Laura Marano) calls out Brooks (Noah Centineo) on the fact that her parents paid him to take her out. The money-for-dates narrative is nothing new in romantic comedies—think She's All That or 10 Things I Hate About You—but the difference here is that Celia knew what her parents did. She isn't naive or in the dark.

Right away The Perfect Date establishes Celia as a young woman with agency—someone who agreed to this paid date because she thought it was funny. It isn't but 30 seconds after Celia meets Brooks that she's knocking him for opening her door and for saying she's his "responsibility" for the night. "I'm not your responsibility because Eisenhower isn't in office anymore," she tells Brooks with a sharpness you usually don't see in rom-com leads.

That's precisely what attracted Marano to the part. "I love how much of a badass Celia is," she tells Glamour. "She’s not your typical female heroine. She’s bitter; she’s sarcastic; she’s a little dark; she’s hilarious—so many things I could tell I was really going to enjoy playing."

She's also, according to Marano, incredibly real. "You have movies that set these unrealistic expectations or standards for women, and a character like Celia is the complete opposite of that," she says. "The opposite of expectations of what kind of female heroine 'should' be in a rom-com. She’s everything contrary to that. What I love about Celia, and The Perfect Date in general, is they take these rom-com stereotypes and turn them on their head."

The premise of The Perfect Date may seem stereotypical, but its execution is anything but. The story centers on Brooks, a high school senior who launches an app that lets women hire him for dates. Celia is the one who gives him this idea, thanks to the aforementioned night out that winds up going surprisingly well. Of course, these two don't get together right away: Brooks has a crush on a rich girl named Shelby (Camila Mendes), and Celia starts liking a music nerd named Franklin (Blaine Kern III). But after a series of events, they (spoiler!!!) realize their feelings for each other and live happily ever after.

This journey to "happily ever after" has several enlightened twists, though. For example, Celia is the one who does the grand romantic gesture for Brooks at the end. And earlier in the film, when she likes Franklin, she has no problems asking him out. Celia doesn't pull any punches when it comes to her emotions: She's raw and up-front and says exactly what's on her mind. She doesn't use Franklin as a device to make Brooks jealous, nor does he do the same thing with Shelby. These characters fall in love because they're honest with each other from the start. There are no games or bets or bullshit—and Marano was happy about that.