Jacob Elordi And Ayo Edebiri's New Movie Is Streaming On Hulu, But The Gap Between Critics And Audience Scores Is Wild

If you’ve been looking for something offbeat to watch via Hulu subscription, The Sweet East just quietly landed on the streaming platform. The indie satire stars fan-favorite actors Jacob Elordi and Ayo Edebiri, which alone drives up the potential for it being an intriguing watch. But before you hit play, you might want to glance at the gap between critics and audience scores, because it is wild.

The film currently holds an impressive 82% Rotten Tomatoes score with critics. The audience score? Well, it's at a much rougher 53% on the Popcornmeter. Talk about a full-on divide.

Directed by Sean Price Williams, The Sweet East follows Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina who gets separated from her classmates during a trip to Washington, D.C. From there, the movie turns into what’s described as a “picaresque journey” through cities and forests along the Eastern seaboard. Lillian drifts from one strange subculture to another, navigating what the film frames as the fractured unreality of modern America. Critics have largely embraced the chaos.

The Critics' Takes

Christina Newland of iNews praised the film’s structure, even while admitting it doesn’t always fully lock into place. She writes:

Catherine Wheatley of Sight & Sound leaned into its surreal tone. She said of the film:

Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph framed Lillian as a modern-day Alice tumbling through ideological rabbit holes. He wrote:

In short, critics seem to appreciate the ambition, the satire, and the swing-for-the-fences weirdness. Audience sentiment, on the other hand, told a very different story.

How Audiences Have Reacted

A gap between the Popcornmeter, which was rolled out in 2024, and critics isn’t exactly rare. A similar situation played out with the 2026 movie release Melania, as the documentary sparked controversial claims when some critics questioned whether the audience score was legitimate, though the platform pushed back on those claims. Now, The Sweet East is seeing a comparable divide between professional reviews and viewer reactions.

One viewer called it “one of the most pretentious and boring movies I have ever seen,” comparing it to a “bad A24 movie” and labeling the experience an “absolute chore.” Another dismissed it as “amateurish, film-schoolish writing” with unlikable characters. Several complained that the film becomes repetitive, with one frustrated reviewer noting, “The girl just keeps getting captured!”

Even viewers who wanted to like it admitted it didn’t quite gel. “I expected more but got less,” one wrote. Others argued that while the cast is strong, the script doesn’t fully deliver.

But it’s not all negative on the audience side. Some viewers clearly connected with it. One called it “funny, weird,” and enjoyable as a situation-to-situation coming-of-age story. Another praised lead actress Talia Ryder as “magnetic” and said they “laughed out loud more than a few times.” One fan even declared it “Absolutely a cult.”

That word might be the key. The Sweet East feels designed to divide. It’s episodic. It’s satirical. It pokes at political and cultural bubbles without necessarily offering a neat thesis. For some, that’s exhilarating. For others, it’s exhausting. And that tension is exactly what you see reflected in that 82% versus 53% split.

If you’re in the mood for something polished and straightforward, this may not be your pick. But if you like movies that wander, provoke, and occasionally test your patience, The Sweet East might be worth adding to your Hulu queue, if only to decide which side of the divide you land on.