Tall Girl

In the late 2010s, the Netflix algorithm became the most powerful casting director in Hollywood, churning out a specific flavor of "Content" designed to be consumed in a single, glassy-eyed sitting. 2019 gave us Tall Girl, a film that arrived with the kind of immediate internet infamy usually reserved for political gaffes or bad wax statues. It wasn’t just a movie; it was a localized weather event of memes. I watched this while nursing a slightly lukewarm lemon-lime seltzer and wondering if my ceiling fan was always that wobbly, and honestly, the fan provided a more consistent sense of tension.

The Algorithm’s Tall Order

We are living in an era of hyper-specific representation, where streaming services attempt to find every conceivable niche and give it a protagonist. Tall Girl attempts to do this for the 6’1" demographic, but it does so with a level of somber gravity usually reserved for Victorian orphans. The film centers on Jodi, played by Ava Michelle, who treats her height not as a physical trait, but as a tragic, insurmountable affliction.

The cultural context here is vital: released during the peak of Netflix’s "Teen Rom-Com" boom—following hits like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before—this film felt like a corporate attempt to replicate lightning in a bottle by finding a "struggle" that felt fresh. The problem, which the internet pointed out within seconds of the trailer’s release, is that being a conventionally attractive, affluent white girl who happens to be tall isn’t exactly the Bastille. When Jodi’s sister, played by Sabrina Carpenter, asks her how the weather is up there, the movie expects us to recoil in horror. Instead, the script treats a size 13 Nike sneaker like a terminal diagnosis, leading to a disconnect between the film’s intended pathos and the audience's reality.

Standout Stature and Suburban Cringe

Despite the unintentional comedy of the premise, there is some genuine craft tucked into the corners of the frame. Ava Michelle is actually a very capable lead; she possesses a natural, fragile earnestness that almost makes you buy into the melodrama. It’s worth noting that she was famously cut from Dance Moms in real life for being—you guessed it—too tall, which adds a layer of meta-honesty to her performance. She’s not just playing a tall girl; she’s an actor who has clearly navigated the industry’s rigid physical expectations.

Then there’s the supporting cast, which is a bizarrely overqualified ensemble. Steve Zahn, an actor I will defend to my dying breath for his work in That Thing You Do!, plays Jodi’s father with a frantic, well-meaning energy that feels like it belongs in a much better movie. He’s terrified that his daughter’s height is a medical anomaly, adding to the film’s strange tone where being 6’1” is treated with the same narrative weight as a Shakespearean curse.

Sabrina Carpenter, long before she was dominating the Billboard charts with "Espresso," provides the necessary "mean-but-not-really" sister energy. She’s the spark plug of the film, providing a comedic timing that the rest of the script sorely lacks. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Griffin Gluck as Dunkleman, the persistent short friend who carries his books in a milk crate so he can stand on it to kiss Jodi. It’s meant to be charming, but in the cold light of 2024, it occasionally veers into the territory of "persistence that should probably result in a restraining order."

Streaming Era Sensibilities

Director Nzingha Stewart does what she can with a script that feels like it was written by a committee trying to figure out what Gen Z finds "relatable." Visually, the film is bathed in that flat, high-key "Netflix Glow"—everything is bright, saturated, and looks like it was filmed inside a high-end IKEA. This is a hallmark of the streaming era: films designed to look good on everything from a 70-inch OLED to a cracked iPhone screen on a moving bus.

The film’s climax, involving a homecoming speech where Jodi finally "stands tall," is the cinematic equivalent of a participation trophy. It’s well-intentioned but profoundly hollow. In an era where cinema is grappling with massive social shifts and complex conversations about identity, Tall Girl feels like a relic of a very specific 2019 moment when we were all trying to find something to be "oppressed" by for the sake of a narrative arc.

What's fascinating about Tall Girl isn't the story itself, but how it reflects the "Pro-Social" marketing of the late 2010s. It’s a drama that wants to be a "message movie" but forgets that the message needs to have some stakes. Still, there’s a certain comfort-food quality to its absurdity. It’s a "background movie"—the kind of thing you put on while folding laundry or, in my case, staring at a wobbly ceiling fan.

Ultimately, this is a film that was swallowed by its own meme-ability. It’s a harmless, occasionally sweet, but largely misguided drama that mistakes a minor inconvenience for a life-altering tragedy. It’s worth a watch if only to see Sabrina Carpenter's early comedic chops or to marvel at the earnestness of Steve Zahn. Just don't expect it to reach the heights it thinks it’s scaling.