Straight Up is a rom-com where the flirting is Olympic-level, the overthinking is weaponized, and the real drama isn’t “will they sleep together?” but “can they stay together without it?” Funny, sharp, and unexpectedly tender.
Straight Up (2019): A rom-com where the chemistry is loud, but the bedroom stays quiet
Some romantic comedies begin with a meet-cute. Straight Up begins with a man describing public bathroom stalls like he’s pitching a documentary called Humanity: A Biohazard. And that’s your first clue: Todd (James Sweeney) is not “quirky” in the standard rom-com way. He’s quirky in the “my brain is a browser with 47 tabs open, and one of them is screaming” way.
This is a comedy, yes. It’s also a weirdly tender little film about how two people can be wildly compatible and still get stuck on the one thing society treats like the final boss of intimacy: sex. Or, more precisely, the expectation of sex. The kind that arrives with confetti and a checklist. As if love isn’t real until somebody takes their clothes off and signs the paperwork.
Todd: a walking monologue with OCD-style logic
Todd is the kind of guy who can turn a simple feeling into a TED Talk, complete with footnotes and a moral panic. He’s anxious, hyper-verbal, and so obsessed with control that you can practically hear his internal narrator adjusting the volume levels of reality. When he says he wants love, you believe him. When he panics about love, you believe him even more.
He’s also the rare rom-com protagonist who doesn’t “just need to loosen up.” Because Todd’s issue isn’t prudishness. It’s fear. It’s disgust. It’s a mind that treats vulnerability like an infection vector. And the film refuses to laugh at that. It laughs with it, which is a huge difference.
Rory: the soulmate who shows up with perfect timing and terrible consequences
Then Rory (Katie Findlay) enters the picture, and suddenly Todd’s life gets that rom-com glow, like someone switched the lighting from “clinical” to “maybe hope.” Rory is smart, funny, warm, and able to keep up with Todd’s machine-gun thought process without flinching. Their conversations feel like two people playing tennis with jokes and anxieties, and somehow nobody drops the ball.
This is where Straight Up is at its best: the chemistry isn’t built on slow-motion longing. It’s built on language. They flirt like they’re speed-running emotional intimacy. It’s charming, it’s exhausting, and it’s kind of adorable in that “these two are absolutely doomed but I’ll watch” way.
The no-sex experiment
Here’s the hook that makes the film both hilarious and quietly radical: Todd and Rory try to build a relationship without sex. Not in a “we’re waiting” way. Not in a “we’re shy” way. In a “this might actually not be part of the deal” way.
And what happens next is a rom-com that keeps stepping around the traditional rom-com engine. No “will they sleep together?” tension. No “third act misunderstanding because of a shirtless photo.” Instead you get something more interesting: the tension of two people trying to define love on their own terms while the rest of the world keeps waving a neon sign that says CONSUMMATE OR IT DOESN’T COUNT.
The film milks comedy from their over-analysis, their awkward negotiations, their attempts to explain themselves without sounding like they’re applying for a research grant. There’s a whole “white elephant” discussion that turns into an accidental thesis on avoidance, and it’s funny because it’s painfully recognizable. We’ve all dodged a hard conversation by arguing about wording. They just do it with Olympic-level commitment.
Labels, sexuality, and the problem with turning your heart into a spreadsheet
One of the smartest things this film does is show how labels can be both relief and trap. Todd keeps trying to solve himself. Gay. Straight. Asexual. Heteroromantic. OCD. Anxiety. He collects possible explanations the way other people collect throw pillows. If he can name it, maybe he can control it. If he can control it, maybe he can be safe. If he can be safe, maybe he can love without fear.
But love doesn’t behave. Love doesn’t sit still long enough to be categorized. Love is messy. Love is contradictory. Love is that moment when you realize your “perfect match” is also a mirror, and the reflection is not always flattering.
Rory isn’t just “the supportive girlfriend” either. She has her own wants, her own doubts, and her own limits. That’s what keeps the film honest. This isn’t a story where Todd is the only complicated one and everyone else is a tutorial character.
Parents, therapy, and the comedy of being watched
The supporting cast shows up like a chorus of social expectations. Parents who mean well but can’t stop being parents. Therapy sessions that feel uncomfortably accurate. Friends who are certain they understand, right up until they don’t. And threaded through it all is this constant sensation that Todd and Rory are being judged by an invisible audience.
Which, of course, they are. The audience is us. And the film keeps nudging us: what do you consider a “real relationship”? What’s the minimum requirement? Kissing? Sex? Shared rent? Matching toothbrushes? Or is it the part where you choose someone, repeatedly, even when your body and brain are arguing in the background?
Why it works
Straight Up works because it doesn’t treat intimacy like a single act. It treats intimacy like a language you learn together. Sometimes you speak it fluently. Sometimes you mispronounce everything and accidentally insult someone’s grandmother. But you keep trying.
It’s also shot in a tight, almost boxed-in frame that matches the characters’ inner worlds. You feel the pressure. You feel the closeness. You feel how easy it is for affection to turn into suffocation when you don’t have room to breathe.
And even when the film leans into heightened dialogue and stylized moments, it keeps a real heartbeat. Under the jokes is something soft: a fear of being alone, a desire to be understood, and a longing for a kind of love that doesn’t require you to perform the version of adulthood everyone expects.
Who should watch it
Watch Straight Up if you like rom-coms that don’t play by rom-com rules. If you enjoy fast talkers, neurotic charm, and relationship dilemmas that aren’t solved by a grand gesture and a perfectly timed kiss.
Skip it if you need your romance simple, your characters calm, and your dialogue breathable. Todd is not breathable. Todd is a hurricane in skinny jeans.
But if you’re up for a smart, funny, slightly anxious film that asks an uncomfortable question with a surprisingly gentle touch, this one is worth your time. It’s the rom-com equivalent of realizing your soulmate might be real… and still being terrified of what comes next.
