How To Say I Love You is the story of Nicola and Sam, two idiosyncratic teenagers who meet cute in the park. The movie is an exquisitely romantic daydream, a wallflower's fantasy version of what falling in love with the perfect boy would be like. It's Twilight without the fangs.

I say it's a fantasy because people like Sam simply don't exist. In real life, he would look at Nicola sadly, bite his lip and move on. Only in the movies do the shy and self-aware get to express their heart's desire, and only in the movies are they rewarded for doing so.

And that's what makes the movie so special. The way Hayley Stuart has written her screenplay, it's as if all the social niceties had been swept away, leaving the characters free to bare their souls. Of course, Nicola still clings to reality - she's there to ask Sam if he's "on drugs" or something - but Sam remains unaffected. He only knows how to speak in climaxes, as if he and Nicola had shared a history she's unaware of, and he's perpetually arriving at his own "you complete me" moment.

I love this movie. It's one of the more romantic things I've seen since Once. I think the key piece of dialogue comes when Nicola confesses she doesn't have a Facebook page, and Sam says he thinks he likes that about her. This is the kind of direct communication this generation has lost. The performances by Nicola Potts and Sam Smith are wonderful, especially Potts, who wilts and blossoms in the span of seven minutes.