The 1st half of "You Are the Apple of My Eye" was a sheer delight! The male lead's voiceover depicted his teen years with an authenticity that makes one feel an actual teenage wrote the dialogue. It has a fresh, goofy quality that is the very essence of youth. I was either smiling or laughing for every frame of the entire first half of the film. It had such innocence that even the masturbation jokes were bereft of the kind of vulgarity we get in Hollywood teen movies such as "American Pie." The Asians can hit this tone in a way that Hollywood cannot, because Hollywood only knows how to depict teen sexuality with vulgarity. The teens in this film did not even kiss on their dates. Hell, these teen characters felt that even holding hands on a date was a big deal.

Observing these teens undergo the trials and tribulations of first love, overbearing teachers, college applications, and the pressures of making career choices, was handled with charm, humor, and a tender kind of nostalgia for those years. The script and director handled all of this deftly. Alas, the plot fell apart in the 2nd half.

To begin, in what universe does a beautiful girl (whom every boy chased throughout high school), choose to date a fat, dorky, unattractive, boring guy with glasses (whom she ignored all through high school), while rejecting a super sexy, well built, fun guy with tons of charisma (whom she'd paid tons of attention to all through high school)? ANSWER: none.

Oh, and then she ends up marrying an old, dull looking man instead of the young, super sexy dude who's her own age; who's been chasing her for years; and whom the entire movie had portrayed as The One. Why bother portraying a sexy male lead as The One if you're going to have the female lead first date a fat guy, and then marry an old guy? But what really killed the movie was the montage at the very end (during the wedding scene), that revealed how the female lead had loved the male lead just as much as he loved her the whole time. She even told her BFF on high school graduation day that she wanted him to confess his love to her. Umm, he did. Dozens of times! So why did she continually reject him when he did?

I think the screenwriter must have somehow forgotten that he'd written this bit about girl telling her BFF she wanted the boy to confess to her. Because when he did confess, she had plenty of opportunities to reciprocate his love. I mean, daily opportunities. Christ, he was telephoning her daily from his college dorm and declaring his love constantly. Yet she responded to his constant declarations by refusing to date him. Hell, the movie even made it clear that she never so much as held his hand. And then, on the rebound after a fight, she proceeded to date the fat kid with glasses for a couple of years and held HIS hand. Then, years later, she marries the older man.

These two plot points made no sense and ruined what had started out as such a fun, charming movie. Really, I'd give the first half a 10 because it was so delightful, and then it totally fell apart in the second half, to which I'd give a 3. And that was only because the male lead was so damned likeable. He was so watchable that I stared at every frame in which he appeared despite the second half's plot making no sense. In total, my rating of a10 for the first half and a 3 for the second half, gives my rating an average of 6.5.