And you know what? Good for Crush! Gen Z deserves a sometimes cringy, sometimes sweet, lesbian coming-of-age story where the plot has nothing to do with coming out or discovering one’s sexuality. So forgive me, Gen Z, if I misuse the following word in describing Crush. I’m what you might call a Zillenial-too young to remember much of the 90s but too old to hang properly with the Tik Tok generation. And you know, maybe form a new crush on Gabriela’s sister Aj (Cravalho) in the meantime? But when Paige gets suspended because the principal ( Michelle Buteau) believes her to be a vandal by the moniker KingPun who keeps tagging the school with punny graffiti, she must join the track team and seek out the real KingPun to keep her record clean. Hence why her best friends Dilon ( Tyler Alvarez) and Stacey ( Teala Dunn) wish she would just tell Gabriela ( Isabella Ferreira) she has a crush on her. Neither of them has particularly challenged her or brought her outside her comfort zone. Perhaps because she’s only had two personality traits her whole life: being an artist, and being gay. She has a lot of ideas but they lack emotion. Paige (Blanchard) is struggling to figure out how to fulfill the promo for her CalArts application, a piece depicting her happiest moment. Crush is a Hulu Original coming-of-age movie directed by Sammi Cohen, written by Casey Rackham and Kirsten King, and starring Rowan Blanchard and Auli’i Cravalho.
