If a movie called Shithouse, which is set on a college campus with students as its principal characters, makes you brace yourself for yet another Old School, or reminds you that Everybody Wants Some did not succeed in making you nostalgic for the good old days, please disregard first impressions. This film is sweet but not sentimental, uncompromising but forgiving, and beautifully attuned to the way young people think and feel. It is also one of the better and more convincing love stories to recently emerge. As such, it succeeds where the majority of college films fail, not shying away from hurt nor succumbing to nostalgia. It makes us recall keenly the pains but also, paradoxically, the joys of being young. 

Alex (Cooper Raiff, who also wrote, directed, and co-edited) is six months into his first year of college, and he is deeply unhappy. Shy and intimidated by the social atmosphere of college, he struggles to make conversation with his party-hard roommate (Logan Miller), he imagines conversations with his stuffed animal from home (a small wolf who communicates through subtitles), and he misses his mother and sister. He calls and FaceTimes them constantly and also pretends that he has made friends. In a desperate attempt to try to enjoy himself, he heads with his roommate to a party at a frat called Shithouse, which has earned its name for the relentless, messy partying that takes place there. 

There he runs into Maggie (Dylan Gelula), his resident adviser, who, even in private moments, does not wear her heart quite so much on her sleeve. After they start, shyly, to flirt, they are quickly separated but meet again back in the dorm after both of their nights have, in different ways, proven to be lackluster. The film takes off from there, and there is very little plot to spoil. We watch them get to know each other, fall in love, fight, and then come back together. 

If the movie achieves one thing alone, it is its seemingly effortless portrayal of young people in awkward and vulnerable moments, struggling to connect with each other and overcome their own personal demons. Alex and Maggie are not quite articulate, but not without insight. Though they make dumb mistakes, they are not themselves dumb. It is a pleasure to watch Raiff and Gelula portray them as they make romantic gestures as they learn and fail to understand one another but gradually come to change. Little things, such as the burying of a pet turtle, feel both utterly specific and weirdly universal.

Though gentle and effacing, the film is unflinching about some genuinely cringe-worthy aspects of growing up, in particular Alex’s intimidating overeagerness and his deeply unromantic struggles with homesickness, to say nothing of the pain of struggling to decipher mixed signals. The supporting characters, though they never take center stage, are all fleshed out enough so that the film has depth beyond its central relationship.

One could certainly argue that Shithouse does not reinvent the wheel, yet it’s modest in its aims, makes the most of its very straightforward plot, and breathes new life into well-worn territory. It’s refreshing to feel that we are watching real people speaking and not actors regurgitating clever dialogue. Furthermore, romantic relationships are such a routine aspect of so many movies that it can be a genuine shock to the system when we see one that actually feels true to life. In its quiet way, Shithouse does just this.