‘A Thanksgiving classic’: why Stuck in Love is my feelgood movie

I’ve watched this movie almost every November for about the last 10 years. It’s something of a rarity, a film about Thanksgiving, celebrating the awkward in-between holiday in a sea of clearcut Halloween and Christmas classics. Stuck in Love is an indie romcom from 2012, the directorial debut of writer-director Josh Boone, who would later go on to make The Fault in Our Stars. It boasts a stacked cast featuring Greg Kinnear, Lily Collins, Nat Wolff, Jennifer Connelly and Logan Lerman (and smaller roles for Kristen Bell, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Glen Powell, as well as a cameo from author Stephen King).

The movie follows Bill Borgens (Kinnear), an unhappily divorced novelist who fosters his two teenage children’s literary ambitions by encouraging them to write – though he hasn’t written in years since becoming a divorcee – while he obsesses over his ex-wife, Erica (Connelly), who has since remarried.

It opens on Thanksgiving with Bill and his antisocial, high school-aged son, Rusty (Wolff), mashing potatoes, opening a can of yams, and prepping a turkey in their beachside home. Over this scene plays Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the 2009 folk song that recently sparked a viral online debate over whether it’s one of the worst songs ever made (I remain firmly pro-Home because of this movie). At dinner we also meet Sam (Collins), Bill’s daughter, a literary nepo baby trying to define herself outside her father’s shadow, home from college.

Sam is clearly disillusioned by her parents’ divorce and has a cynical outlook on love. “If love is setting a place at the table for someone who’s never coming home, I think I’ll pass,” she tells her younger brother, Rusty, of their lovesick father. “That’s fucking depressing, Sam,” replies Rusty, the more hopeless romantic of the siblings.

The movie mixes a nostalgic early-2010s indie sensibility with common romcom tropes: emotional teens, second chances, wistful soundtracks full of stomp-clap music and Tumblr-worthy one liners.

I first watched Stuck in Love in my last year of middle school in the mid-2010s, but it really began to resonate during my angsty high school years. I had a crush on a boy who I exclusively communicated with via Snapchat, I thought I was cooler than most of my peers because I listened to the Arctic Monkeys and I was starting to gain more political consciousness via Teen Vogue (… and Twitter). In my head, Sam was aspirational: an effortlessly cool feminist and determined writer who was rightfully skeptical of men and their intentions (in one scene, she chats up a guy at a bar and rants about monogamy and the nuclear family being “socially accepted delusions”). I also identified with Rusty’s yearning for his crush and how out of reach a high school social life of parties and young love felt at the time.

Watching it again now, I see that every character is indeed stuck, not necessarily in love, but in their stubborn ways, only experiencing growth when they step outside their comfort zones. Sam softens up and opens her heart to Lou (played by a baby-faced Lerman), her “nice guy” college classmate who breaks through her cynicism. Rusty stops being so passive and puts his heart on the line for his crush. Bill sets up an online dating profile and tries to move on from his ex, if even just for a moment. I also find myself a bit less stubborn revisiting the film now; I battle less with being a Rusty or a Sam in favor of a middle ground of hopeful romanticism with a healthy dash of skepticism.

By the final act of the movie, we’re back at Thanksgiving one year later. The familiar whistle of Home plays yet again and Rusty and Bill are preparing dinner. A less-cynical Sam brings her new boyfriend Lou as her plus-one. Then comes a surprise knock at the door from a teary-eyed Erica saying to Bill: “I got a little lost.” But, of course, there’s always a place for her at the table.

Though Stuck in Love is not marketed as a Thanksgiving movie, it’s one of the holiday’s best unofficial entries with a perfect, full circle ending. For all its cliches and wistfulness, the movie is a genuine joy that never fails to awaken a bubbling sense of hope in me. It always feels like a call to action that encourages me to actively live life instead of letting it happen to me across different phases. It’s inspired moonshot college applications, cross-country moves, declarations of love, risky texts and global travels.

That’s what solidifies this movie as a Thanksgiving classic. More than just beginning and ending on the holiday, it’s reflective, transitional and full of imperfect people trying. A bit like Thanksgiving being the weird middle child of the end-of-year holidays, Stuck in Love is about the odd in-between periods of life and opening ourselves to new beginnings.

• Stuck in Love is available on Prime Video and Tubi