Netflix's 'Purple Hearts' Has Everyone Talking After Spike in Streaming

By Daniel S. Levine

Netflix might pour hundreds of millions of dollars into action spectacles but it continues to be the romantic dramas that connect with viewers. Purple Hearts, which was released a week after the star-studded The Gray Man, is now the top movie on Netflix worldwide. The film has Netflix subscribers who recently discovered it buzzing on social media.

Purple Hearts is based on the novel by Tess Wakefield and was directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum (Aquamarine, Romana and Beezus). Sofia Carson stars as singer-songwriter Cassie Salazar while Nicholas Galitzine plays Luke Morrow. Cassie was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and works as a waitress to pay for insulin. One night, she serves a group of Marines, including Luke, whom she flirts with. Although Cassie turns him down at first, they discover they are connected through Frankie (Chosen Jacobs), who was Cassie's childhood friend and is now Luke's friend.

Cassie learns Luke has financial problems of his own. He is struggling to get clean and is in deep financial debt to his dealer. So Frankie hatches a plan for Cassie and Luke to get married so Cassie could reap the benefits of being a military wife before Luke is re-deployed. Of course, they really do fall in love and Cassie becomes a music star when her song about Luke being called off to service goes viral.

'I felt like I watched a really quality romance'

Scroll on to see how fans responded to Purple Hearts.

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'Cassie and Luke have my purple heart'

Purple Hearts was released on Netflix on July 29 and quickly stormed the global Netflix charts. The film debuted on the Global Top 10 chart for the week of July 25-31 with 48.23 million hours viewed in its first two days of release. That was behind The Gray Man, which had 96.47 million hours viewed during the same week.

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'Gave me everything and more'

In its first full week of release, Purple Hearts kicked The Gray Man to the curb. Purple Hearts took over the number one spot with 102.59 million hours viewed between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7. Even though Netflix heavily promoted the $200 million The Gray Man, it still hasn't had over 100 million hours viewed in a single seven-day period, unlike Purple Hearts.

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'They're just so perfect'

Purple Hearts has sparked a debate among military spouses about its depiction of saying goodbye to their husband or wife when they are deployed. Emma Tighe, who has written about her experiences as a military spouse on her Facebook page Rolling Along, told Today she enjoyed the movie but didn't think it accurately portrayed the military spouse experience. "I did not feel like (Purple Hearts) embodies the military spouse experience, but to be fair, that's not what the story is about," she said. "It's good for what it is, a chick flick, but I won't be recommending it."

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'What a movie'

"Every military spouse is different so their experiences will be different, too," Bailey Cummins, a military spouse living in Germany with her family, told Today. The really sad reality is many spouses do marry for benefits – maybe not a contract marriage like in the movie, but choosing to marry someone they have a connection with faster than normal because of things like needing health insurance or wanting to live together but the soldier is enlisted and can't move out of the barracks unless married."

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'Absolute masterpiece'

Purple Hearts was also Carson's biggest challenge yet as an actor, she told PEOPLE. She did "a lot of research into every aspect that could have shaped and formed the woman that she was when we met her," Carson said. "Everything from the immigrant experience coming into this country, being an immigrant in San Diego, in Southern California, type 1 diabetes, military, the military culture, her worldview, her political views, her stance on marriage."

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