(Credits: Thibault Penin)

Saturday nights are for films unwinding, but with those films that feel small at first but stay with you long after the credits roll.

The Spectacular Now is the kind of movie that lands you in a reckoning with yourself, but not before offering the most comforting hug that makes you feel accepted in a damaged shell.

It might be tagged a teen romance drama, but this 2013 A24 vehicle doesn’t play by the usual rules of the genre. This film has its shadows, and it does not shy away from walking into the heavier sides. You start by meeting Miles Teller’s Sutter Keely, the life-of-the-party high school senior who hides his insecurities behind quick jokes and a flask he never unhands.

At an impasse with his demons, he crosses paths with Aimee Finecky, radiating quiet brilliance through Shailene Woodley’s performance, and that’s when the film shifts gears.

Aimee isn’t the manic pixie dream girl teen features usually push to unhealthy adoption in the mainstream, or just a background love interest. She is the shy, bookish classmate who carries her own dreams and doubts, so the meet-cute leads to a relationship growing in bursts and many starts. Similarly, Sutter’s alcohol dependence and his fear of the future are starkly illuminated while recognising how charm can sometimes be a mask for pain.

This bildungsroman respects its characters enough to let them be flawed and work through the gaps in their communication. Director James Ponsoldt’s introspective lens captures the settling silences and the awkwardness taking root to realistically portray how hard it is to be vulnerable and let someone in, especially when you’re used to keeping everyone at arm’s length.

Teller and Woodley exhibit unpolished chemistry that makes their characters feel lived-in, situated in a story that is both delicate and devastating. Toeing that line to bittersweet effect, The Spectacular Now is heartfelt without being overtly sentimental and romantic yet not unrealistically so, and, most essentially, you don’t feel like you’ve watched a cliché but witnessed two people growing up, stumbling their way into adulthood with baggage firmly checked in.

So if you are looking for one movie to watch this Saturday night, skip the blockbusters and sink into this Netflix gem instead. The Spectacular Now isn’t just another glossy teen drama; it is a reminder of how love in all its awkward glory can change the way you see yourself and exist around others.