Good, but what about the bullying?

There were many good things about this movie. But didn't anybody get a little bit of a sour taste in their mouths that the two protagonists were bullies?

Bullies are usually weak, insecure people (or just sociopaths-in-the-making). Oliver certainly was insecure, and was portrayed as bullying in order to be accepted by others, which is very true to life. He wasn't really a cruel kid though, and felt bad about it when it went too far, but when it didn't he was too self-absorbed to worry about others. And he had no problem keeping "tormenting the weak" to maintain Jordana's respect. Probably a pretty realistic portrayal of an immature, self-absorbed person, but when you think about it kinda hard to care about as a character.

Jordana is more troublesome. There was no explanation for why she was a bully. At first I thought it had to do with trouble at home, her mother being sick. Maybe it did, but her mother did get well and there didn't seem to be any other problems with her family life from before. Still, I guess some kids just naturally follow along and do what everybody else does, like picking on those lower in the pecking order, without feeling bad about it. But I don't think these kids grow up to be anything but a**holes, quite frankly. I know, a lot of kids do this, but remember also that there are a lot of a**holes out there.

In short, I had to really ignore that aspect of the characters to try to care about them at all. With Jordana it was especially hard.