Aahana Swrup
The Max film ‘Sweethearts’ follows the story of two best friends who make a Thanksgiving pact. Ben and Jamie are longtime best friends who leave their hometown to attend Densen College together. Likewise, while in college, they come to the same conclusion that their respective long-distance relationships with their high-school sweethearts, Claire and Simon, have run their course. Naturally, this brings them to the decision that they must break up with their partners on their next trip back home on Thanksgiving.
Nevertheless, as they return to reunite with their Cranford High alumnus in Ohio, the town-wide drunken shenanigans before the holiday’s eve throw a chaotic wrench in their plans. In this story, the two educational establishments central to Ben and Jamie’s story remain crucial elements of worldbuilding within the story.
Densen College: Ben and Jamie’s Fictional Institute
In ‘Sweethearts,’ Densen College is the first place in which viewers are introduced to Ben and Jamie’s characters. For the most part, the location serves the purpose of establishing the duo’s unsuccessful social and academic endeavors in college. From missed classes due to phone calls or thwarted attempts at partying, Densen College affirms the pitfalls of a long-distance relationship for Ben and Jamie. Thus, it occupies a significant role in informing the world around the narrative of the protagonists. However, outside of the screen, Densen College holds no relation to reality.
Densen College is not a real institution. It could have been a reference to Ohio’s Denison University if not for the fact that aspect of Ben and Jamie’s storyline pointedly takes place outside of Ohio. In real life, some of the establishments related to the film’s on-screen college are Vermont College of Fine Arts—reportedly the location for Densen’s exterior shots—and New Jersey’s Ramapo College, Densen’s on-screen campus. However, these institutes only serve as filming locations for the fictional college and hold no other connection to it. Ultimately, much like Ben and Jamie, their college is also a fictional element.
Cranford High: A Fictional School With Real-Life Parallels
In terms of narrative significance, Cranford High serves the purpose of a backstory in ‘Sweethearts.’ Ben, Jamie, and their various fellow peers attended Cranford High in their youth. As such, when the duo returns to their hometowns, the high school and its former students become a ground for nostalgia—not always of the good kind. Overall, the establishment furthers the realism and relatability of the central storyline. While there isn’t a Cranford High School in real-life Ohio, a counterpart to the school exists in New Jersey.
As per reports, much of the filming for the film took place in the New Jersey cities of Demarest, Newark, Cranford, and others. Naturally, this resulted in the inclusion of a few landmark places in these locations, including Cranford’s public high school. However, for filming purposes, the film reportedly employed the football fields of Edison High School in Edison, New Jersey. For the same reason, the film’s version of the high school retains multiple loose roots in reality. Therefore, Cranford High’s on-screen depiction also ultimately remains a mix of real life and fiction.
Read More: Max’s Sweethearts: Exploring All Filming Locations
