It is early in the festival at TIFF 2025, but coming out of Charlie Harper, I would bet that it is going to snag one of my best of TIFF slots this year. I’m always a sucker for a well-told love story, but more often than not, they are filled with tropes and stereotypes that just aren’t healthy messages for love, despite how badly they pull us in. Charlie Harper covers the rise and fall of a relationship so smartly that by the end, I wanted the cheesy happy ending because I fell so deeply in love with both characters and the lessons they taught each other.
“I know how it begins. I know how it ends. But when I think about it, everything in the middle is scrambled.” This is a line in the film that perfectly sums up not only a love story, but also Charlie Harper as a film, and how the story is told.
Charlie Harper follows the telling of a couple’s love story from high school, past college and into adulthood. From the moment they met until the time it all fell apart and after, but completely out of order. It seems like such a simple concept. How I Met Your Mother and Definitely Maybe follow similar ideas, but where Charlie Harper differs is in the way the film tells a story two ways at the same time.
“Charlie Harper covers the rise and fall of a relationship so smartly that by the end, I wanted the cheesy happy ending because I fell so deeply in love with both characters and the lessons they taught each other.”
Harper (Emilia Jones) and Charlie (Nick Robinson) are both recalling their relationship at different points in their lives: Harper, while she is at the beginning of the end, and Charlie, a time after. They aren’t even really telling different versions, but with each moment, there is a new context that really changes the way we see it, and maybe how Charlie and Harper see it, too.
The way each sequence in Charlie Harper was filmed separately, but peppered throughout the film in pieces, was outstanding. Even if you knew where in the timeline something took place, there was always something new and surprising each time that we saw it. Whether it was an item that revealed something more, a handshake we didn’t understand, or a tone that took on new meaning, there was always something new to discover that held weight to the overall story.
There was also so much done with the film’s style. Very “real” moments, vulnerable ones, were often shown in a grainy, slightly-less-shiny way, making the film feel the way the visuals do. Charlie Harper also uses the wide aspect ratio to differentiate between moments, dividing the past and present. The editing team on Charlie Harper deserves some serious props, not to mention the writer and director, Tom Dean (also directed by Mac Eldridge), who told such a beautiful, real story in a disjointed way.
I spoke with writer and director, Tom Dean, surprisingly on the red carpet for Carolina Caroline at TIFF 2025, which he also wrote. He talked about his love for a good montage, and that is evident here. It’s one thing to like them, but I’ve never seen a montage pulled together so intelligently. What’s more, though, is how he captures the back and forth between two people, whether that is in moments of shyness, love, passion or despair.
I also feel that Charlie Harper was a really relatable portrayal of a love story that began in high school and continued into early college and beyond. The things you once adored are no longer enough. The striving to grow and the struggles with ambition while priorities change between two people is hard to capture, but Dean did it with such accuracy and emotion that I felt like I was right there with them. Charlie Harper explores the need to grow and stay the same, to want too much and not enough, the expectations we have of others and ourselves.
At the center of all of those explorations is an excellent lesson of “better to have loved and lost” and a truly positive look at how the people around us mould and change us, even if they aren’t meant to stay with us. Where many relationships in film focus on moving on and forgetting, “We’re not supposed to forget,” was a line that comes from Charlie’s mouth in a scene that was all too relatable to anyone who has faced heartbreak.
“…Charlie Harper is a film you can’t miss at TIFF 2025.”
Nick Robinson and Emilia Jones, the titular Charlie and Harper, respectively, have outstanding chemistry. This isn’t just with their love scenes; a lot of it lies in the banter and the small glances. A traditional love story can feel very grand in its romance, but Charlie Harper does so much with the small moments in between the grand ones. Whether it is the way Robinson captured Charlie’s excitement with his eyes, so slightly lighting up at the mention of Harper, or the cocky comedic timing we see from Jones, the two were meant to play this pair, and I don’t see that genuine connection often.
At this point, I feel like I am gushing, and really, going into Charlie Harper without expectations is what blew me away. If you can get behind a real love story, one that explores love for another and love for yourself, and are open to a different kind of happy ending—or really just love a good montage, Charlie Harper is a film you can’t miss at TIFF 2025.
