ROM-DRAMEDY??............"THE NEW ROMANTIC"

The New Romantic (2018)    Not sure how to categorize this.......since it skews and wobbles from snarky millennial semi-comedy to a moral cautionary tale about young women trading sex for material goodies.......

               A college senior and school paper columnist (Jessica Barden)stumbles on to a story to spice up her sex-less commentaries on romance........meeting .a girl livin' the high life courtesy of a Sugar Daddy.

                In other words........no love, but cash, clothes and other expensive stuff on the barrelhead.

                Smelling a story, our intrepid reporter ends up giving it a try herself........becoming a friend-with-benefits to an older professor.

                 And the benefits flow........in place of her well worn bicycle, Sugar-Prof gifts her with a Vespa.....and so on and so on.......

                  Surprisingly, this movie turns out as moral and upright as a church sermon......teaching us that loveless sex in exchange for cool stuff is BAD.........it almost could have been made in the 50's or early 60's...........

                   Well, not exactly. In "Breakfast At Tiffany's", you couldn't have a closeup of a miserable, humiliated Audrey Hepburn while stuck underneath one of her huffing, puffing Sugar-Pops.......

                    You do get that here, of course.......but a sadder but wiser Barden sees the error of her ways and returns to genuine affection and chaste smooching with an age-appropriate classmate........(at least this is far more believable than committed golddigger Marilyn Monroe ending up with Tommy Noonan at the end of"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"......)

                    And the whole sugar-daddy thing is revealed for what the filmmakers  thought it was all along......a pretzel-logic re-definition of prostitution......end of sermon, peace be with you.

                     Barden's cute 'n plucky, but you can decide for yourselves if she makes this worth sitting through. For BQ  2 stars (**)