And all at once, Paige finds herself working with AJ to unmask a mysterious artist who’s been spray-painting school property, trying to figure out how to run more than five feet without falling on her face, and maybe just learning what love feels like. But the coach pairs Paige with Gabby’s sister AJ (Cravalho) as a training partner instead.
Paige decides her longtime crush on popular track team co-captain Gabby (Isabella Ferreira) is the ideal inspiration, and an ultimatum from the school principal forcing her to join the team provides the perfect opportunity to get to know Gabby for real. It follows Paige (Blanchard), an awkward lesbian artist attending the somewhat utopian Miller High, who’s tasked with distilling her “happiest moment” into a painting for a college program application. In an era of increasingly discriminatory and violent anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and rhetoric, Crush, out today on Hulu, offers viewers a blissful hour and a half of smart, sweet, queer escapism. In a lot of ways, Crush, a love story starring Rowan Blanchard and Auli’I Cravalho, is like every other teen rom-com-and that’s part of what makes it exceptional.
