'Chemical Hearts' director Richard Tanne on the film's 'bittersweet' ending and what he hopes fans take away from the movie
- Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Chemical Hearts," which is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
- Director and screenwriter Richard Tanne spoke to Insider about the movie's "bittersweet" ending.
- He said that people might be disappointed that Grace Town and Henry Page don't end up together, but it's OK.
- "I just wanted to make something that didn't talk down to the younger audience," Tanne told us. "I wanted to make something that either meets them at their level or asks them to reach a little bit higher or dig a little bit deeper."
- Star Austin Abrams echoed Tanne's comments, telling Insider that they tried to "portray the characters as honestly as possible."
"Chemical Hearts" director Richard Tanne spoke to Insider about the film's "bittersweet" ending and what he hopes fans take away from it.
"I think it's gonna disappoint some people, and maybe all people on a certain level, " the 35-year-old filmmaker told us. "It's bittersweet. But that's OK."
The film, based on Krystal Sutherland's 2016 book "Our Chemical Hearts" and now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, centers on 17-year-old high school senior Henry Page (Austin Abrams), who finds himself drawn to a mysterious and secretive new transfer student named Grace Town (Lili Reinhart).
"Chemical Hearts" is told from Henry's perspective, chronicling his first heartbreak after he falls in love with the person he thinks Grace is.
Tanne, who wrote the screenplay, said that he was impressed by how the story goes 'a little bit deeper than your average teen romance'
"I loved how it embraced the dark side of being young, the pain and the grief and the loss, the idea of crossing the threshold from being an adolescent to an adult for the first time," he told us.
By the end of the movie, Henry learns about Grace's tragic past. On their last day of senior year, the characters don't end up together. Instead, they prepare to explore different futures, with Henry heading off to a school for writing and Grace taking a year off to continue therapy.
Even though fans might be disappointed by the love interests splitting, Tanne said that 'not everything has to be escapist'
"Sometimes, younger people watching movies don't know that it's OK to have unhappy endings because they're fed a steady stream, a steady diet of escapist happily ever after movies," he told us. "And that's OK."
He added: "There's a place for those, I'm not knocking them. But I just wanted to make something that didn't talk down to the younger audience. I wanted to make something that either meets them at their level or asks them to reach a little bit higher or dig a little bit deeper."
Tanne said that having to confront that 'bittersweet ending' could also be useful to viewers
The director described the conclusion as bittersweet because "there's hope at the end, maybe not for their relationship, but for other aspects of their lives."
"Maybe it will be helpful for young people to see that and walk away with the same sting that Henry has, but to know that it's going to be OK, to know that Henry will be OK," he said.
Abrams, who was 22 when he filmed the movie, told Insider that hopefully, audiences will empathize with Henry.
"I think in terms of I supposed how he's navigating relationships, I feel like hopefully at least anyone can relate to that," he said.
Abrams told Insider that Henry and Grace's relationship status at the end speaks to the film's realistic nature
Abrams shared similar sentiments as Tanne, telling us that they tried to "portray the characters as honestly as possible," which ties in to the conclusion.
"I think there are some people that meet one person and that's who they're with for the rest of their lives, who actually are Henry's parents in the movie," the 23-year-old actor told us.
"But then there are other people, and I think it's probably a larger number, that are going to be in multiple relationships and some of them, a lot of them aren't going to go well. I hope that that's an aspect of the movie that people are able to relate to."
Abrams added that he's "perfectly fine" letting fans decide for themselves what their main takeaways are from "Chemical Hearts."
"I hope that maybe they take away things that I didn't even think of, because everyone's different and at a different point in their life and hopefully will be able to relate to it in different ways."
Watch the trailer for "Chemical Hearts" below.