Along for the Ride

Along for the Ride (2022) — watch online the Netflix coming-of-age romance directed by Sofia Alvarez, based on Sarah Dessen's novel of the same name. Emma Pasarow and Belmont Cameli lead, with Kate Bosworth and Andie MacDowell in supporting roles.

Auden has spent her entire school life being the serious one — high grades, no parties, no wasted nights. The summer before college lands her in Colby, a quiet coastal town where her dad now lives with his new wife. By day it's awkward family dinners. By night she runs into Eli, a fellow insomniac with his own reasons for staying out of sight until sunrise. Together they work through a list of teenage experiences Auden skipped — roller skating, trying street food, staying up for no reason at all — and somewhere in the middle of that, something shifts for both of them.

Sofia Alvarez keeps the tone warm and unforced, and the seaside setting does a lot of the heavy lifting. It works best as a summer mood piece rather than a conventional love story — the kind of film that's easy to start at midnight and finish feeling better about things. Stream Along for the Ride (2022) online on iFILM.