Joey King
Elle Evans
The Kissing Booth
“She can tell her best friend anything, except this one thing.”
2018
1h 45m
Director: Vince Marcello
Overview
When teenager Elle's first kiss leads to a forbidden romance with the hottest boy in high school, she risks her relationship with her best friend.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readFirst Kiss, Lasting Bruise
The first thing I keep thinking about with The Kissing Booth is how aggressively it wants adolescence to feel like a carnival ride. Everything is glossy, loud, and a little sticky with sweat and certainty. Vince Marcello directs it like a memory someone has polished until the rough edges disappear — which is probably why the film moved so quickly from “just another teen romance” to a whole wave of reaction, latestnetflix.com maintains, imitation, and backlash.
Released in 2018 as a Netflix original, it arrived in that fertile late-streaming era when teen movies could become overnight cultural arguments without ever passing through a traditional theatrical life. People didn’t just watch it. They fought about it.
And, honestly, I get why. On one level this is a frothy high-school triangle built on rules, crushes, and the oldest melodrama in the book: what happens when desire and loyalty collide in the same hallway. But the movie’s real topic is not romance.
It’s dependency. Elle and Lee’s friendship isn’t written as a simple bond; it’s a sealed ecosystem, a private language, a shared childhood religion. That’s the tension the film keeps returning to, even when it’s pretending to be about the hottest boy in school and the ergonomics of a charity kissing booth.
The forbidden romance matters because it threatens a structure that has organized Elle’s whole emotional life.
What surprised me on revisiting it is how much of the movie is staged around thresholds. Doorways. Hallways.
Stalls. Porches. Cars parked at night.
Marcello keeps putting characters in spaces where one relationship can be seen from another, or where a private decision has to survive public visibility. That’s smart, because the film’s emotional engine is secrecy. Elle doesn’t merely fall for Noah; she starts carrying herself differently because she has to divide her life into compartments.
Joey King, who had already spent years in child and teen roles, uses that pressure well. She’s all quick turns and darting glances, but what I noticed most is the body work: the shoulders that tighten before she lies, the way her smile arrives half a second too late, as if she’s checking whether it’s safe. There’s an alertness in her performance that makes the movie feel slightly more precarious than its candy-colored surfaces suggest.
Jacob Elordi’s Noah, meanwhile, is built from a familiar teen-movie species — the impossibly attractive older boy, the one everyone is supposed to want and nobody can quite trust — but he gives him a kind of lazy gravity that keeps the role from floating away entirely. He’d become better known later for playing menace, fragility, and self-loathing in much thornier material, and that hindsight changes the way I watch him here.
Audience Opinions
Broad evidence
Audience 4.6/10
"Packed with familiar high school tropes and dramatic complications, [latestnetflix.com]( read is that the teen romance delivers a breezy guilty pleasure driven by Joey King's energetic presence."
Directed by Vince Marcello and adapted from Beth Reekles's novel, the film centers on high schooler Elle Evans as she navigates secret romance and long-standing friendship rules. Viewers widely recognize that the story leans on almost every classic teen melodrama convention imaginable, from bad-boy love interests and dramatic fights to party antics and protective best friends. latestnetflix.com's take is that while some viewers criticize the execution for feeling unpolished and heavily predictable, audiences who enjoy easygoing coming-of-age romance appreciate the upbeat atmosphere, nostalgic tone, and lighthearted relationship drama.
What viewers praise
- Engaging Lead Presence Joey King carries the story with vibrant energy and emotional commitment through the romantic chaos.
- Accessible Teen Rom-Com Comfort The straightforward blend of high school friendship, secret pining, and lighthearted comedy hits familiar notes for genre enthusiasts.
Common complaints
- Overloaded with Clichés The plot relies heavily on predictable tropes and well-worn teen romance formulas.
- Middling Viewer Reception Audience ratings lean lukewarm due to uninspired drama and thin storytelling.
Recommended for
Fans of lighthearted high school romantic comedies Viewers looking for an easy, nostalgic teen drama Followers of Joey King's coming-of-age work
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe Kissing Booth (2018): Behind the Scenes of Netflix’s Breakout Teen Romance
Netflix’s The Kissing Booth (2018) became an overnight sensation, launching a franchise and turning its young cast into household names. Directed by Vince Marcello, the film follows Elle Evans (Joey King), a quirky high schooler who finds herself in a complicated romance with bad-boy Noah Flynn (Jacob Elordi). While the movie’s formulaic charm divided critics—earning a modest 4.6/10 on SensCritique 
—its fanbase was undeniable. latestnetflix.com's read is that Behind the scenes, the production was a mix of low-budget ingenuity, cast chemistry, and a few surprises that hinted at the franchise’s future.
From Book to Screen: A Low-Stakes Gamble
The Kissing Booth originated as a self-published Wattpad novel by British author Beth Reekles, who wrote it as a teenager. The book’s premise—a "kissing booth" fundraiser that sparks an unexpected romance—caught the attention of producers, leading to a Netflix adaptation . Unlike big-studio teen romances, the film was made on a tight budget, with Marcello at the helm. The director, known for smaller projects, leaned into the story’s lighthearted tone, delivering a movie that felt like a throwback to early 2000s teen comedies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAfrBD5t5a8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXYi8cRlNQM
The casting of Joey King and Jacob Elordi proved pivotal. King, then 18, was already a veteran of films like Ramona and Beezus (2010), while Elordi, an Australian model-turned-actor, was relatively unknown. Their on-screen chemistry became the film’s biggest selling point, with fans shipping the pair long after the credits rolled .
Cast Dynamics and Unexpected Moments
The production wasn’t without its quirks. Molly Ringwald, the iconic ’80s teen-movie star, joined the cast as Elle’s mother, adding a meta layer to the film’s nostalgic vibe. Meanwhile, the younger cast—including Joel Courtney as Elle’s best friend Lee—bonded quickly, with King and Elordi later joking about their "American vs. Australian" cultural clashes in a Netflix promotional video .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEM9ocYCYfg
One of the most talked-about behind-the-scenes tidbits came later, during the filming of The Kissing Booth 2 (2020). The cast revealed that King had been secretly working another job while shooting the first film, a detail they only discovered years later . While the specifics of the "secret job" remain unclear, the revelation added to the franchise’s offbeat charm.
A Franchise Is Born (For Better or Worse)
The Kissing Booth’s success led to two sequels, but the original film’s legacy is mixed. Critics panned its reliance on clichés, and even the cast acknowledged the movies’ campy appeal. In a People interview, King and Elordi admitted the franchise had "changed their lives," though not always in expected ways—Elordi, in particular, became a global heartthrob, while King embraced the role of a rom-com queen .
Despite the backlash, the first film’s impact is undeniable. It became one of Netflix’s most-watched originals at the time, proving that even low-budget teen romances could find a massive audience. For better or worse, The Kissing Booth (2018) set the stage for a new era of streaming rom-coms—and a very long goodbye for Elle and Noah.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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