Kara Caballero
Every very high school centered rom-com follows the main character, an unpopular girl, crushing on the conventionally attractive popular guy and by the end of the movie they date. Usually it is always the girl falling for the guy while he plays hard to get, but in ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved’ the plot stands out from the rest.
The hit novel written by Jenny Han, and screenplay directed by Susan Johnson is now a recommended movie on Netflix, reeling many people in along with the sequel has the audience hooked for more of Laura Jean’s romantic life. The movie unveiled the messy love life Lara Jean had, from faking her relationship with Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) in order to make his ex-girlfriend jealous in hopes that they would get back together.
Considering that she only had her father and sister, while still grieving her mother’s death, she wished for her mother’s advice. While her father is trying his best to be there for her daughter’s heartbreak. ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved’ also provides a valuable lesson to be freely open to your feelings and to not bottle them up but rather be more open to other opportunities. This movie gives real life expectations on how relationships can happen and how unexpectedly you end up with people with which you never really thought you had a chance.
I liked how the movie portrays the characters of differing backgrounds and its display of an interracial couple. Unfortunately, this representation is something that some people are not as exposed to, so bringing a couple like this into light, where they look different, have different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, is noteworthy. This movie alsoshowed that it’s what matters on the inside rather than how a person looks on the outside regardless of the background they came from.
When comparing both movies, the sequel ‘To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You’ wasn’t as good as the first movie. The second movie shows that a person from her past comes back and was put in a position whether or not she wants to be with her current boyfriend or the other guy John McClaren who was a childhood friend of hers and ended up volunteering in the same retirement home as L.J, which we for sure expected a complicated love triangle that was bound to happen.
It puts Lara Jean to the test for her current relationship or past childhood love to figure out what her heart truly wants, but is she actually going to leave Peter Kavinsky for someone she once had feelings for? By the end of the movie she kisses John McClaren; which brings L.J a moment of clarity to who she truly wants, Peter. As if on cue whilst searching for him, he appears in typical rom-com fashion, confessing their feelings tos each other leading Lara Jean to understand that not all relationships are perfect.
For the most part, ‘To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You’ still carries the charm and same aspect as the first movie and keeps us invested in the new characters it brings in. But will this rom-com sequel be the end of Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky’s love story, or will there be a third movie in the works?
