By Elizabeth Weitzman

“So what’s the whole story?” someone asks early in “Charlie Harper,” a gently appealing romance from debut directors Mac Eldridge and Tom Dean. If the answer they come up with isn’t exactly unexpected, the path they take in getting there does feel fully sincere.

Charlie (Nick Robinson, “Maid”) meets Harper (Emilia Jones, “CODA”) in a high school English class, and they fall for each other instantly. But he’s a year older, and despite some flirting—via carefully-chosen CD mixes, because it’s 2008—they don’t really connect until after she graduates.