‘Love Untangled’ (2025) Netflix Movie Review - A Playful Tumble Through First Love and Frizzy Hair

When I pressed play on Love Untangled, I wasn’t expecting to be thrown into an existential crisis about teenage curls, but here we are. This is a film that wears its absurd premise on its sleeve and dares you not to smirk. The core story is delightfully silly: a teenager convinced that her love life hinges entirely on the straightness of her hair. It’s such a ridiculous conflict, yet the movie treats it with such sincerity that you can’t help but roll with it. Shin Eun-soo’s Park Se-ri, bubbly and neurotic, barrels through the screen with the kind of enthusiasm that makes you want to laugh and groan at the same time. Her energy is infectious in small bursts, though there are moments when it feels like she’s on her eighth shot of espresso and the rest of us are just trying to sip tea in peace.

The nostalgia factor is one of the film’s biggest strengths. Set in 1998 Busan, the movie drapes itself in cassette tapes, camcorders, and seaside after-school walks, all painted in the pastel hues of a memory. It’s a rose-tinted version of the late 90s, the kind of setting where even homework looks photogenic. The production team clearly knew what they were doing, tugging at that sentimental thread of youth long gone. I’ll admit, I was charmed. The settings feel lived-in and genuine, even if sometimes they veer a little too far into glossy photo-album territory.

The supporting cast is another highlight. Se-ri’s friends, Baek Seong-rae and Ko In-jeong, are the kind of side characters that breathe life into these stories. They ground her chaos and provide comic relief without stealing the spotlight. The boy she pines after, Kim Hye-on, is the right mix of aloof and approachable, exactly the sort of unreachable figure teenage rom-coms thrive on. And then, of course, we have Gong Myung as Han Yoon-seok, the transfer student who feels like he stepped out of a different genre, calm, dry, and oddly magnetic. The dynamic between him and Se-ri is one of the film’s strongest threads, and their scenes together are genuinely enjoyable. They don’t reinvent the rom-com dynamic, but they hit the right beats to keep you engaged.

But while the film coasts on charm and nostalgia, it also tangles itself in flaws it can’t quite brush out. The most glaring issue is how it handles its central insecurity. On the surface, tackling beauty standards through the lens of a teenage girl’s hair could have been smart social commentary. Instead, it sometimes feels like the movie is reinforcing the very nonsense it sets out to critique. The repeated suggestion that straight hair equals pretty and curly hair equals embarrassing wears thin quickly. In 2025, this idea feels old, and it drags the story back into a dated frame. It’s a missed opportunity to push the message into fresher, more empowering territory.

The pacing, too, is uneven. The first half is breezy and fun, full of awkward confessions and comedic mishaps, but the second half slams into melodrama like it’s been instructed by a completely different director. Suddenly, the lightheartedness is hijacked by a plot twist that feels forced, as if the filmmakers didn’t trust their original story to hold attention. It’s a shame, because the premise had enough weight to carry itself without being saddled with unnecessary theatrics. The tonal shift doesn’t sink the film, but it certainly jolts it off course.

Another nitpick is the casting. Shin Eun-soo sells the high-school energy well enough, but Gong Myung as a teenager is harder to buy into. He does fine work in his role, but at times it feels like we’re watching an adult humor a younger kid, rather than two peers navigating adolescence together. It’s a small but noticeable distraction, especially in a film so heavily reliant on the believability of teenage infatuation.

Still, the film’s earnestness is hard to resist. Even when Se-ri’s antics are bordering on annoying, you want her to win, you want her to discover that curls don’t define her worth, and you want her to realize that love, tangled or not, isn’t about appearances. There’s a sincerity in the way the film approaches these lessons that keeps it from collapsing under its own clichés. It’s cheesy, yes, but there’s a charm in how openly it embraces that cheesiness.

The cinematography and music deserve some applause. The coastal city backdrops are shot beautifully, and the retro touches in the soundtrack tie the whole nostalgic package together. The film doesn’t dazzle with innovation in either department, but it does just enough to reinforce its mood of innocent first love wrapped in 90s kitsch. You walk away remembering the atmosphere as much as the characters themselves.

So where does that leave Love Untangled? Somewhere in the middle of the Netflix rom-com spectrum. It’s not groundbreaking, and it doesn’t have the bite or depth to make it memorable in the long run. But it’s also not disposable fluff; it has its moments of real heart, humor, and authenticity. For every eye-rolling hair joke, there’s a small, sweet scene that lands just right. For every misstep into melodrama, there’s a laugh-out-loud piece of teenage chaos to balance it out.

In the end, it’s a film you can poke fun at and still enjoy, the kind you roast with friends but secretly have a good time watching. It may not challenge your ideas of cinema, but it offers a comfortable, familiar escape into the exaggerated worries of high-school life. And sometimes, that’s exactly the sort of tangled comfort Netflix knows how to provide.

Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Anjali Sharma
Follow @AnjaliS54769166 on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times