BRIGHTER THAN THE MOON

Three 17-year-olds—an illustrator, a beauty vlogger, and a TikTok star—orbit a queer love triangle in greater Boston.

It’s been six months since Shani, a YouTuber who specializes in Black hair care, hired Jonas to draw her an anime avatar through his Instagram. Jonas wants Shani, who is mixed and identifies as Black, to be his online girlfriend but is anxious she won’t like the real him. He was raised since age 7 by a loving foster mother and doesn’t know his racial background, a mystery soon to be solved by a 23andMe DNA kit. Jonas has lived in a subsidized studio apartment since his foster mom moved into hospice care. After being catfished twice, Shani becomes suspicious when Jonas doesn’t want to meet in person even though they talk every night and live only 6 miles apart. She recruits Ash, her Indian and Cuban trans best friend, to uncover the truth about Jonas. Ash poses as a client commissioning him to make gay Marvel backdrops for his TikTok, and sparks begin to fly between them as well. All three eventually fall for each other, clouding their relationships with doubt and duplicity. The bloated plot is held together by corporate name-dropping and pop-culture references. Told through alternating third-person perspectives, the sexually fluid trio’s story is depicted with an attention to detail that sometimes conveys warmth but too often weighs down the story without adding substance.

A convoluted soap opera.