Almost Friends came out in 2016. The movie starts Freddie Highmore, Odeya Rush and Christopher Meloni. The movie was underrated and was not given the publicity that it deserved.
The movie is about a whole bunch of teenaged angst. Charlie has a crush on a girl (Amber) who works at a coffee shop. Charlie is freshly out of high school where Amber is in her last year of high school Charlie’s friend Ben encourages Charlie to go speak with her at work. Charlie does and it is a very awkward conversation. Charlie leaves his keys in the coffee shop, Amber comes to give them to him but Charlie is to caught off guard to admit that they are his.
Charlie and Amber have a few more awkward conversations but continue to talk with each other. They are not really friends and they are certainly not going out. Amber has a boyfriend who is the star of the track and field team and Charlie is single but doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life.
Over time they build a relationship, Amber and her boyfriend take a bit of a break but Amber and Charlie do not get together at all. As they get to know each other they discover things about each other like Amber’s family moved to Florida for her fathers job but she wanted to say put so she could finish high school at the same school, work and stay with her boyfriend. Amber likes with her drunk dead-beat cousin who Amber gets Charlie to get him a job at the local movie theatre. Charlie is a really good cook, he has a connection with a guy to be a cook in New York but doesn’t use it until the end of the movie when Charlie plans to be a cook. Charlie had the opportunity to cook but while there he backed out, needed a break but one day became one month which is now nearing one year. He isn’t sure what to do and doesn’t think he can get back into it.
The side story is, is that Charlie’s dad randomly comes to see him and his mom. Charlie’s mother has remarried and had another son with the new husband. Charlie’s father is a con artist but claims that he is in town, needing a place to stay for a bit, needs some help while he gets back on his feet. You never really find out how much of a con artist he really is. Charlie’s father, Howard, ends up stealing all of the furniture in the house and plans to sell it for money. Charlie knows where he is staying, goes to the hotel room to confront him but the father is swimming in his own lies to keep his head above water. Howard just wants one more chance to prove himself despite this being his last chance to be able to prove himself. When Charlie gets to the ground floor of the hotel police are there going up, you are being lead to believe that the police are there to take Howard to jail for pulling his cons.
At the end of the movie everything ends happy well almost. Amber gets picked up by her dad to go to Florida the day that the school ends and Charlie goes to New York with his friend Ben to start their new lives. Charlie and Amber will always remember each other as they were almost friends!