It’s Emelie’s junior year of high school, and she has her Valentine’s Day all planned out (including saying “I love you” to her boyfriend, Josh, who’s the top student in mock trials and all other extracurriculars, and who she’s been dating for the past 3 months).
However, nothing goes as she planned.
-
On the way to school, she looks at her phone while driving and crashes into the car she was tailing (Nick’s car, which was stopped since there was a squirrel crossing).
-
She gets called into the office to have a meeting with the guidance counselor and a board director of the summer fellowship program that she’d recently been accepted into. Emelie had been super pumped that she got accepted, since this opportunity would look great on her resume (which she hopes will help her get scholarships at her dream school, since her divorced parents used up all their savings on lawyers). The director informs Emelie that there was a mistake and that she actually was not accepted.
-
She catches Josh’s ex-girlfriend (Macy) making a move on Josh. Josh kisses her back instead of stopping her.
-
When Emilie arrives at her dad’s home after school, he tells her that he got a promotion and is moving 150 miles away. She will have to choose whether she wants to stay with her mom (which he assumes she’ll want to do), or move with him and his new wife and kids.
-
Emilie goes to her Grandma Max’s house for comfort, and she accidentally puts 50-year-old pepper into her soup, which sets her mouth on fire and possibly poisons her.
The next morning (and the morning after that, and the morning after that, it’s still Valentine’s Day.
She tries altering the way things turn out with the following results:
-
She tries taking another route to school, but she still crashes into Nick’s car. So she always ends up driving to school in Nick’s passenger seat, wearing the warm extra jacket he has).
-
She tries hiding out in the bathroom to avoid going to the office, but then the director emails Emilie the bad news instead. She also tries pleading to not take her spot away and gives various fake sob stories, but she always loses the spot anyways.
-
She tries various ways to prevent the kiss between Macy and Josh from happening (including smushing between them in his 2-seater car to go to Starbucks with them, or throwing a baseball at the windshield the moment the kiss starts happening). Regardless, it always seems like Josh still has an attraction for Macy (even though he later clarifies that it’s just history they have, not chemistry).
Eventually, Emilie tries to play everything super safe, thinking that the universe is merely giving her a chance to correct her mistakes.
-
She tries walking to school, but Nick has car trouble and asks for her help to start the car while he applies starter fluid.
-
She professionally explains to the director how this spot will help her get into her dream college due to her family’s financial situation, and she asks if there is a different opportunity open instead. The director has an idea for a different internship opportunity and promises to look into it and get back to her to correct their wrongdoing.
-
She makes sure to stop by Josh’s locker in the morning. He gives her chocolate, a generic poem, and a silver bracelet (even though he should have known that she’s allergic to silver). She accepts all these gifts with a polite smile.
-
When her dad tells her about the promotion, she has a heartfelt moment with him by expressing how much both he and her mom mean to her. She doesn’t want to have to choose one or the other, so her dad promises to have a talk with his new wife and her mom to discuss their possibilities.
Despite having the “perfect” day, she still wakes up on February 14th.
By this time, Emilie is so tired of it being the same day, so she dedicates this day to being a DONC (Day of No Consequences).
-
She steals her dad’s beloved Porsche and drives over 50 mph over the speed limit. She gets pulled over, she gets ticketed with a mandatory court date, and the Porsche gets impounded.
-
After the office meeting, she notices that the intercom is available, so she uses it to publicly break up with Josh.
-
She stood up to the popular mean girls, who she admits are being secretly dissed on for dissing others behind their backs.
-
She talks to Nick while their chemistry teacher is talking. When the teacher asks them if they are talking about anything important that they would like to share with the class, they loudly agree that they should ditch school -- and they do. They drive downtown, where they do the following:
-
They sneak to the 40th floor of a bank to see the view there (which is where Emilie’s parents got engaged awhile back).
-
Emilie gets a tattoo at the tattoo parlor that Nick works at.
-
Emilie learns that this Valentine’s Day is actually the 1-year anniversary of Nick’s older brother’s (Eric’s) death. Eric was 3 years older than Nick and died in an AMV accident. Nick explains how hard this day has been on him, still grieving the loss of his brother while being surrounded by other people giving out flowers and chocolates and chasing after a happiness that he finds to be elusive. They dedicate the second half of the day to doing activities that Eric would have enjoyed (such as having a scooter race).
-
Emilie opens up about her own family issues, such as being seen as the “leftovers” of a marriage that didn’t work out. She gives the example of how on her 9th birthday, she was really looking forward to a purple unicorn cake, but each of her parents thought that it was the other’s responsibility to get the cake. So she ended up with no cake at all on her birthday.
On this day that Emilie was fully expecting to be restarted via the time loop, it actually continues on.
When she wakes up, it’s February 15th.
The working theory is that Eric was putting her in this time loop until Nick finally got the perfect day with the perfect girl, finally coming to closure over Eric’s absence and learning to open himself up again.
On Emilie’s birthday, Eric surprises her with the exact same purple unicorn cake she wanted as a kid (thanks to her grandma convincing the baker to make one for him).