'Status Update:' Movie Review

Starring Olivia Holt and Ross Lynch, Status Update is about a boy who is new to town and doesn't fit in. Classic teen high school film. And there's a romance element. Cliche. But in this film, it has a technology aspect that is very important for every person who is involved in technology.

So new kid Kyle Moore (Ross Lynch) moves to town with his family who is newly separated from the father figure (a deadbeat dad—no surprise there), and his sister has a new boyfriend and friends, but Kyle isn't so lucky. He finds a friend who is the nerd of the school with no friends either.

After an incident with the school bullies, Kyle has to go get a new phone. So he goes to a mall kiosk and meets a weird dude who gives him a phone with an app called the universe. If you put good vibes out in the universe it will listen. A.k.a, if you enter something in the phone it comes true.

So Kyle, being the lustful teenager, takes advantage. This app lets him get whatever he wants. He starts out small and asks for his car to be with him, and his dad.

As he starts getting everything he wants, everything just falls into place.He is finally finding a place in the world at his high school. He's got a best friend, a future girlfriend, and is the lead singer in the Band Slam competition. He even does a high school musical scene where he sings and dances in the cafeteria (that was literally the best).

There's only one thing that is tearing his good vibe up. The bully. Derek. He's the captain of the hockey team. (I think the sports they do in these movies are the ones where the main actor is actually good at them. Ross has been doing hockey since age three according to the internet.) Anyway, he finds a way to destroy Derek's facade of being the popular kid, by becoming the hockey star of the school.

Everything seems to be going well for Kyle until Derek's life becomes his life. He gets the girl, the popularity, and the coaches' love. His family life even starts to go downhill.

Kyle soon realizes that this is not what he wants. He tries to use his app to make everything better, but when his phone gets cracked the app isn't working and Kyle doesn't know what to do. He decides to stay home from school one day and that is the most important scene in the movie.

Scene:

Kyle: "I posted some things on social media, and I've hurt people. And it all keeps getting worse. I really messed up."

Mom: "Okay, well, when you mess up and you're gonna mess up, all you have to do is take ownership and make it right. That's it. It's like ripping off a band-aid... And look, social media isn't real, you know that. It's just everybody's highlight reel of stuff they want you to see. It's all bullshit. Bullshit with a filter on it to make it look pretty."

End Scene.

What his mom said is really profound. Social media is just a bunch of crap that we all take for granted, posting our ugly faces and trying to make ourselves pretty. This is essentially what this kid did, but he just wanted to make friends, essentially taking it too much out of proportion and almost ruining his life.

He turned his life upside down and made everything right. It was hard though. He had to face his deadbeat dad, give the popularity back to Derek, and try to win the girl back that he really wanted. At first, she doesn't give him what he wants, which is great because that makes the ending all the sweeter. But everything seems right in the world and when he tries to apologize to the girl (Dani) again, she accepts it and they make up.

The message isn't about being yourself, it's about being yourself in a world with a bunch of fakers who try to make themselves become someone else on social media. The world of social media can do some good for a person, but it can also hurt them in unimaginable ways. That is why everyone needs to take a look at themselves and become a person they want to see in the mirror and not social media.