Dear David

2023 [INDONESIAN]

Action / Comedy / Drama / Fantasy / Romance

15
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 63% · 3 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 63%
IMDb Rating 5.7/10 10 1072 1.1K

high school bullying love student

Plot summary

A secret fantasy blog might jeopardize the promising future of Laras, a talented student, when the blog is revealed to her entire school.

Director

Lucky Kuswandi Photo
Lucky Kuswandi

Top cast

Emir Mahira Photo
Emir Mahira as David
Lutesha Photo
Lutesha as Anya
Natalius Chendana Photo
Natalius Chendana as Pastor
Ricky Saldian Photo
Ricky Saldian as Wahyu
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 2160p.WEB
1.06 GB
1280*648
Indonesian 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   id   ar   cz   dk   de   gr   es   fi   fr   il   hr   hu   it   ja   kr   ms   no   nl   pl   pt   ro   sv   th   tr   uk   vi   cn  
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 2
2.18 GB
1920*972
Indonesian 5.1
NR
Subtitles us   id   ar   cz   dk   de   gr   es   fi   fr   il   hr   hu   it   ja   kr   ms   no   nl   pl   pt   ro   sv   th   tr   uk   vi   cn  
24 fps
1 hr 58 min
Seeds 1
5.29 GB
3840*2160
Indonesian 2.0
NR
Subtitles id  
23.976 fps
N/A
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by paul_haakonsen 6 / 10

A long movie, but still enjoyable...

Right, while I was somewhat much older than the target audience for this 2023 Indonesian drama titled "Dear David", I have to admit that the movie actually turned out to be entertaining and enjoyable.Writers Winnie Benjamin, Daud Sumolang and Muhammad Zaidy put together a nicely written storyline that had a richly detailed character gallery to bring the story to life on the screen. And it is a story that draws you in and takes you along on a ride as Laras's secret writing leaks to the school and turns her and David's lives upside down.Sure, the storyline is aimed at a young adult audience, no doubt about it. But I actually found the storyline and script to be rather nicely written and constructed, and that made for an thoroughly watchable and entertaining movie.The acting performances in "Dear David" were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they definitely put on good and realistic performances. Leading actress Shenina Cinnamon really carried the movie quite well, and she certainly is a very talented actress.Something that was working against the overall enjoyment of the movie was the length of the movie. It ran for nearly two hours, and would have benefitted from a much more generous cutting touch in the final editing. Nearly two hours of a drama such as this was pushing it to the limit and beyond.A movie such as "Dear David" is one that will find a wide appeal with the young adult audience, of that I am quite sure. And not just with an Indonesian audience either. Give director Lucky Kuswandi's movie a chance, because it definitely is an entertaining movie.My rating of "Dear David" lands on a six out of ten stars.
Reviewed by GiraffeDoor 6 / 10

There's at least a fragment of least three OK movies in here.

Sometimes the nationality IS the selling point and maybe that's what got me to sit through the whole thing.My bias as transatlantic media consumer is that this totally feels like a professional job. Even if not every likes it, it's a respectable take on the teen dramedy genre with well developed characters and a plot that (mostly) keep moving.It's bemusing how certain elements just sort of show up together; we begin with a story of one girl's internal life being publicized, continue into a story of old and new friendships developing and in the end it's a commentary on fascists we let run schools.Piece by piece it all works but it's hard to find thematic unity here and maybe we don't need to. We have a sympathetic heroin and a visually appealing vision of a landscape and a community. The Cerano de Bergerac angle thankfully doesn't take up TOO much time and the rekindling of an old friendship suffers from having zero ground work placed on it. The Dilla character (David's affections) is often hard to like and I wish she had been called out on her nonsense more.It's infuriating to watch that human garbage they call a vice-principal fixate over nothing in a dystopian way but at least we're supposed to hate her and the pay-off is good enough.
Reviewed by GiraffeDoor 6 / 10

There's at a fragment of least three OK movies in here.

Sometimes the nationality IS the selling point and maybe that's what got me to sit through the whole thing.My bias as transatlantic media consumer is that this totally feels like a professional job. Even if not every likes it, it's a respectable take on the teen dramedy genre with well developed characters and a plot that (mostly) keep moving.It's bemusing how certain elements just sort of show up together; we begin with a story of one girl's internal life being publicized, continue into a story of old and new friendships developing and in the end it's a commentary on fascists we let run schools.Piece by piece it all works but it's hard to find thematic unity here and maybe we don't need to. We have a sympathetic heroin and a visually appealing vision of a landscape and a community. The Cerano de Bergerac angle thankfully doesn't take up TOO much time and the rekindling of an old friendship suffers from having zero ground work placed on it. The Dilla character (David's affections) is often hard to like and I wish she had been called out on her nonsense more.It's infuriating to watch that human garbage they call a vice-principal fixate over nothing in a dystopian way but at least we're supposed to hate her and the pay-off is good enough.
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