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On June 1, 2021, Flipped (originally released in 2010) was added to Netflix and earned hundreds of thousands of views the first day it was uploaded. The movie, already beloved by many, quickly gained an even larger platform and developed a fandom that loved every aspect of the film. The main focus of Flipped was on the relationship between Juli Baker and Bryce Loski. Many people saw this relationship and instantly fell in love with it when in reality, Bryce and Juli should never have been anything more than neighbors.
The New Neighbors In Flipped (2010; Rob Reiner)
Bryce and Juli became neighbors when Bryce and his family moved across the street while he was in elementary school. Right from the moment the moving truck pulled in, Juli had gone over to the new family to try to help them unpack. However, her sneaking into the back of the truck caught Bryce off guard, and Juli took this as him having a little crush on her but being nervous cause they first met. However, this was not the case at all, and Bryce’s dad tried getting Juli to go back to her own house, and when she did not take the hint, he told Bryce to help his mother in an effort to get him out of the obviously uncomfortable situation. Unfortunately, Juli thought that Bryce did not actually want to leave her, so she ran off into his yard and grabbed his hand. From this moment on, Juli did everything she could to pursue a relationship with her new neighbor, creating the main story point of Flipped.
The Onset Was Just Classmates
As the two got older, Juli continued to become closer with Bryce, despite him making it clear he wanted nothing to do with her. Eventually, Bryce came up with the idea that things would calm down a little bit if he got a girlfriend, and Juli would finally leave him be. This worked temporarily, but as soon a the girl broke up with him after finding out he was only using her to get Juli to back down, things went back to exactly how they were before. No matter what Bryce did to Juli, she would still stick by him at every chance she got. It is easy to want to root for Juli to succeed in her efforts to try to advance her relationship in Flipped with him, but at this point, it may have been for the best if she kept her distance from him. By staying just as acquaintances, she would have prevented more hurt that would come in the future.
The Sycamore Tree
One of the most important things to Juli as she was growing up and one of the most memorable pieces of the movie Flipped was the sycamore tree in the neighborhood. She would climb up the very top of the tree in the mornings to watch the sunrise and finished off the day in the same spot watching the sun go back down. She did this even on school mornings, where instead of waiting on the ground at the bus stop with Bryce and the rest of the kids in their neighborhood, she would stay up in the tree until the bus came. Of course, she would always invite Bryce up to join her, but he rejected the offer every time.
When Juli was sitting up in the tree one day, a crew called out to her for her to come down because they were beginning to chop down the tree. This understandably upset her, and she refused to climb back down, figuring that as long as she was in the sycamore, they would not be able to destroy it. She pleaded to her classmates at the bus stop for them to come and help her save the tree, but they all ignored her and got onto the bus the moment it pulled to a stop. She yelled for Bryce to stay back, and he hesitated for a second before joining the rest of his friends, leaving Juli behind. Bryce and Juli had never been best friends or anything of that sort, but she still had hope that he would have enough decency to stick around to help her with something she cared deeply about. In the end, Juli’s father came and got her to come down from her spot, and the tree was then cut down.
The Eggs
Ever since her elementary school science fair, Juli raised chickens in her backyard and sold the eggs to her neighbors. One day, she got the idea to bring some eggs over to Bryce’s house for him and his family, for no cost whatsoever. She ended up continuing to do this for weeks and enjoyed the short interactions she got with Bryce. On the other hand, she didn’t know that all of these eggs she was bringing over were going directly into the trash barrel.
Bryce was scared of eggs after watching a snake eat one whole once, and the rest of his family thought that Juli’s yard was far too dirty for the eggs to be safe to eat. These two reasons lead to Bryce throwing out the eggs nearly immediately after Juli handed them to him, and he thought he was getting away with it until Juli caught him as she was walking back to her house. After this, Juli distanced herself from Bryce as she had realized that he was not worth the time and energy she was putting in, showing the progression of her emotions involving him throughout Flipped.
Bryce Loski, The Boy Who Is Too Late
After finding out how people really thought about her yard, Juli took on the mission of making it look the best it could be. As she started working on cleaning, Bryce’s grandfather spotted her outside and came over to offer some help. After that, he began going across the street to work with Juli nearly every day, and this did not go unnoticed by Bryce.
At first, Bryce was annoyed that his grandfather, who would barely even acknowledge his existence, was suddenly devoting all of his time to helping a girl he wasn’t even related to. Soon, this annoyance turned into curiosity about what was so intriguing about Juli that caused his grandfather to come out of his quiet shell. Back when the incident with the tree being cut down had occurred, an article about Juli staying up in the tree had been published in the newspaper, but Bryce had never had any interest in reading it until that moment in time. After this, he suddenly saw Juli in a different light and began to develop feelings for her, but he was far too late.
Basket Boy
By this point in Flipped, Bryce had a full-on developed crush on Juli, and Juli had a full-on developed hatred for Bryce. She was still annoyed by all of the mistreatment given by him over the years that she was only coming to realize, alongside the anger she had felt from overhearing Bryce saying something horrible about her uncle. Due to this, things were not looking too bright for Bryce’s future, and he was willing to do just about anything to get another chance with the girl he had been pushing away since they were kids.
At their school, a fundraiser was being held that Bryce was a part of, where some of the boys in the seventh grade would dress up nicely and bring lunches packed in baskets, and classmates could bid on who they wanted to have a lunch date with. On Juli’s way to school that morning, one of her neighbors, she had been bringing eggs to, paid her as she passed by, meaning that she had a large sum of cash with her during school. Someone had spotted her holding the money and told Bryce, who then hoped that Juli having money with her on the day of the fundraiser meant that she might be considering buying a date with him.
During the bidding, there was a boy who no one placed a single bid on; Juli felt bad for him and decided to go with him to the lunch date after the event was over. While they were there, Bryce could not stop looking at her, despite having a date of his own sitting across from him. After seeing Juli laughing at the other table, Bryce decided that he could not let it go any farther and marched over to the table, grabbed her hand, and tried to kiss her. This did not work out remotely how he had hoped it would, and it ended in her leaning away and rushing all the way back to her house, where she then went straight to, in an effort to avoid him at all costs.
The Return Of The Sycamore Tree
As things in Flipped heated up, Bryce continued to make efforts to get Juli to talk to him again, but nothing he did seemed to work. She was confused with all of the different emotions she was being faced with, and looking out her window to see Bryce Loski digging a hole in her front yard that she had worked so hard on perfecting most likely did not help much.
Finally, after seeing him pierce the shovel through the ground, she rushed out to try to prevent him from doing any more damage but stopped after he walked away to get something. He returned with a sapling, a sycamore sapling to be specific, in his hands. Once Juli saw that he was planting in her yard, she forgot all about the anger and confusion she felt towards him and walked over to help beside him.
Not The Perfect Love Story
It might be easy to look at their story in Flipped and automatically think that it was perfect, even though that was not the case. As cute as it may be, the love story was severely flawed and should not have happened to begin with. Juli had spent the majority of her life longing for someone who despised her existence. She constantly tried to start even just a friendship with him, but he ignored her every time. The only time that he took an interest in her was when she had moved on. Bryce truly only wanted her when he could no longer have her, and his feelings towards her were more filled with fascination and curiosity than actual romantic thoughts.
For a relationship to thrive, both people have to be in it more for the right reasons, and Bryce Loski was not whatsoever. If Juli had never realized that he was not what she had made him up to be in her mind, he would have never developed any feelings for her. He was only interested because she no longer was devoting her time to him, even though he did not deserve it, to begin with. Even apart from romantic instances, Bryce had just treated her and her family terribly in general. He never defended them to his father, who looked down upon Juli’s family because of how they chose to live their lives, and wouldn’t bother to defend her to his friends either, who took it upon themselves to mock Juli at every chance they got. Someone who truly cared for a person would not be doing things to tear them down and instead be doing things to protect them.
Juli + Bryce, Without The Bryce
By the end of Flipped, it was clear that Juli deserved far better than Bryce. All she wanted was to be enough for him, and he made sure to make her know that she would never be. She eventually understood that Bryce was not all that she had made him out to be and that there was more to life than just the boy across the street. Unfortunately, right as she came to this conclusion, Bryce came back to bring her down. In the end, it would be for the best for them to go their separate ways to continue to grow and thrive as different people.
Flipped is a perfect example of a toxic relationship being romanticized by the viewers due to its flaws not being blatantly visible. The story is very well written. The actors do an excellent job portraying their roles, but that does not make it a good idea for viewers to look up to the onscreen couple to represent how “healthy” relationships are supposed to be. One of the major problems with this is that a good portion of the audience who viewed the film were on the younger side, meaning that they were more likely to look at Bryce and Juli as an example of how they should expect their love lives to play out in the future. If they were to watch how Bryce treated Juli and saw no issue with it, it could lead to them not being treated the way they deserve by their potential significant others.