To All the Boys I've Loved Before

[osprey_archer]

Netflix’s latest offering, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, is adorable. Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean is totally marginal to her high school social scene - not bullied, but invisible - and prefers to explore the world of social interaction by reading romance novels and writing secret love letters to her crushes, which she hides in a teal hatbox.

Naturally, the letters mysteriously get sent. And, just as naturally, this ends with Lara Jean fake-dating her junior high crush Peter Kavinsky (these letters have been piling up for a few years). He hopes their fake relationship will make his ex-girlfriend (who coincidentally is also Lara Jean’s ex-best-friend) jealous, while Lara Jean hopes it will convince her real crush that she doesn’t actually have a crush on him, because he happens to be her sister’s ex-boyfriend...

Well, when you write it out like that it all sounds rather contrived, but in the movie it seems quite natural: the actors are almost uniformly excellent, and they really sell the story.

And despite all the convoluted trappings it really is a sweet story. I particularly liked how much time the leads spend talking to each other and getting to know each other: they really do seem well-suited, which is somewhat rare in a romantic comedy and even moreso in a teen movie.

It does retain one of the features I find irritating in teen movie feature teen movies, though: teen movie friendships rarely get as much screen time as I think they need. In this case, I felt that Lara Jean’s ex-friend Gen needed more development: why were they ever friends when Gen’s only real character trait is “bitchiness”?

But on the other hand To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before did give a good amount of space to Lara Jean’s relationships with her sisters: I particularly liked Lara Jean’s little sister, Kitty, who takes a part that could seem obnoxiously precocious and makes her character feel real and lovable. There’s a scene near the beginning where Kitty and Lara Jean are having a Golden Girls marathon and it’s just so real and cute and yet slightly sad, too, because eleven-year-old Kitty had other plans that Saturday night and sixteen-year-old Lara Jean didn’t.

And, on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, there’s the scene where Lara Jean’s little sister admits to being the one who sent Lara Jean’s love letters out into the world (inspired by sad Golden Girls marathon). “I’m going to kill you,” Lara Jean says, her voice totally flat, so furious that her entire being has become an arrow of murderous intent and she has no emotion to spare for her voice. The next moment she’s chasing Kitty around the room. That also is such a sibling interaction.

Comments

[sovay]

I particularly liked how much time the leads spend talking to each other and getting to know each other: they really do seem well-suited, which is somewhat rare in a romantic comedy and even moreso in a teen movie.

Nice!

why were they ever friends when Gen’s only real character trait is “bitchiness”?

Honestly, that is a known dynamic in adolescent friendships. It's not a very good one, but it absolutely exists.

[brigid]

I've heard really good things about both movie and book. It's nice to know the sibling dynamics are pretty realistic!

[osprey_archer]

I think what I like most about the sibling dynamics is that it's not all sibling rivalry or all sibling loving supportiveness: there's a little bit of both and which one comes to the top varies depending on the situation.

[staranise]

While looking for gifsets on Tumblr, I came across a complaint post about how much the movie had changed from the book; it seems like the book is even more full of wonderful character detail.

[osprey_archer]

While I liked the movie, I don't think I liked it quite enough to seek the book out... but if it does come my way, maybe I'll give it a look.

[asakiyume]

I just saw this! And I was impressed too by how much time they spent talking to each other--I really liked that. I **really** liked Peter a lot. I think he was my favorite character, actually.

I really liked the sister relationships too, and the fact that in spite of everything, the relationships were, and stayed, really strong. Margot didn't get much screen time, but she endeared herself to me at the very beginning when she directed her sisters to be nice about their dad's latest attempt at Korean cooking. It was a family where everyone was working hard at supporting each other--and not always succeeding, which is real too--but still trying.

I was somewhat frustrated by Lara Jean, though. I couldn't buy her saying that the reasons she'd never had a boyfriend was because no one ever liked her. This is a girl who's had a boy for a best friend as a kid and up and asked Lucas to dance with her--so she doesn't seem like the sort of person who'd have the impression that she had to sit on the shelf waiting for someone to pick her. And it was hard for me to credit how blind she was with regard to Peter's feelings for her. [Tangent: And why do people in these sorts of movies always believe untrustworthy, cruel people with ulterior motives to cause problems (Gen) over people they've come to know and care for in a real way (Peter)?]

... That comes off as overly negative about her, though. I loved her interactions with Peter when it was the two of them getting to know each other, and I liked her interactions with Lucas and with her sisters very much.

[osprey_archer]

I think this kind of movie has an inherent problem in that they always cast adorable actresses for the part of The Girl Who Can't Get a Boyfriend (see also: Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries) and then expect us to believe that no one wants to date this girl even though she's as cute as a button. Ha!

I agree that the final misunderstanding was contrived, though. To be fair, Peter's never actually said, "You know what? I'm not interested in Gen anymore," so I can see why Lara Jean is inclined to believe that Gen might be telling the truth: getting back with Gen is ostensibly still Peter's plan, even if he also seems to be into Lara Jean. Maybe he's just confused! Maybe he's done a dumb thing because he's a teenager and that's what they do!

So I can see why she takes his wishy-washy response the way she does: the fact that he doesn't contradict Gen or instantly explain suggests that he's got something to hide. But the filmmakers didn't really sell that wishy-washiness to me as an in-character thing for Peter to do, rather than a contrivance to throw one final hurdle in the way of the romance. Aside from the weird set-up of their relationship he and Lara Jean are both generally pretty direct people.

[asakiyume]

As a tangent follow-up--kind of going along with your why-did-Lara-Jean-ever-have-Gen-as-a-best-friend--why did Peter ever like Gen?

Like what the hell is nice about Gen?

How about a movie where the girl rival is just a normal person? Not an awful human being who lies and schemes and bullies and teases, but someone who you could understand the protagonist being best friends with once, and who you could understand the love interest having a relationship with.

[osprey_archer]

I'm assuming that the answer to "Why did Peter like Gen" is "she's super pretty," which, okay, I guess this is a reason why people date horrible people.

But I think Gen's general two-dimensional horribleness is part of a general resistance in movies to complexity in relationships between women. Like, if Gen had good qualities, if Lara Jean missed their lost friendship (or missed parts of it even while acknowledging that she and Gen no longer have anything in common) and Peter liked her for reasons other than "she's super pretty," it would muddy the storyline, I guess? At least from a certain point of view. IMO it could have enriched the story even more if it had been done well.