By Suzanne Cole | Staff Writer
2018’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was a triumph for Netflix’s lineup of teen romcoms. The high-school romance of Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) and Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) was sweet without being sickly, the plot points were familiar yet fresh, and the aesthetic was thoroughly enjoyable. Sadly, the third and final film in the franchise, To All The Boys: Always and Forever fails to deliver on most of these elements. Part of this may be because of the circumstances of the timeline. While the pandemic rages on in our world, Lara Jean’s 2021 is markedly different. Although filmed in 2019, the bulk of the movie is set between March and June 2021, with nary a reference to masks or social distancing. Within the first half of the movie, Lara Jean has already taken two trips necessitating long-distance flights! I felt uneasy watching these, and many other events, play out in this alternate universe where there was no pandemic.
Independent of the covid-free setting, a sense of artificiality permeates throughout the movie. The plot points are about as colorful as the film’s black-and-white line-art illustration motif. Perhaps I felt this way because of the changes from the books, which were set in Virginia. Rather than Stanford, lacrosse jock Peter Kavinsky is going to UVA. Instead of deciding between UC Berkeley or NYU, Lara Jean is torn between William & Mary and UNC-Chapel Hill. As a reader from Virginia, the college choices in the book were a refreshing breath of realism in a genre that often has eyes only for Ivies and other elite private schools. While the setting change meant that there would be no reference to these mid-Atlantic schools, I was hoping that Lara Jean’s choices would still reflect the sensibilities of the books. However, this was not the case. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a merely elevated reality from a franchise that ended the second movie with Lara Jean and Peter literally ascending into the skies.
Fortunately, the film balances the flighty romantic plot with Lara Jean’s familial and platonic relationships. In terms of the former, the Covey family continues to be a delight, even with reduced screen time. Lara Jean’s father Dan (John Corbett) and sister Kitty (Anna Cathcart) provide much-needed sources of stability. Additionally, Lara Jean continues to have the support of her best friend, Chris (Madeleine Arthur), and they continue to put up with the (now softening) snark of resident mean girl Gen (Emilija Baranac). However, Chris’s tacit upholding of norms, while attempting to subvert them, appears numerous times in the movie.Her anti-establishment sensibilities are reflected with a pre-planned gap year in Costa Rica, and while her sex-positive comments to Lara Jean are better than shaming her, she still doesn’t appear to take into account what Lara Jean wants from her relationship. Later in the film, Chris utters the phrase “eat your feelings.”
And then we have Peter Kavinsky. He plays the role of devoted, and later, disappointed high-school boyfriend quite well, even getting a substantial subplot with his absent father. But the conflict between Lara Jean and Peter over the prospect of a long-distance relationship doesn’t play out right. Peter places the blame of long-distance solely on Lara Jean. Not only that, but Lara Jean’s factors for considering UC Berkeley seems to be solely dependent on the fact that Peter will be living an hour away. She briefly mentions her intended major–English–but manages to work in a dig at other English majors: “I know that’s what people choose as their major when they don’t know what they want to do with their life, but I actually really want to do it.” What “it” refers to is unclear. Lara Jean doesn’t bat an eye about moving away from her family, however, which is unusual considering the close familial bonds displayed in the first and second movies.
For a franchise that’s previously been genre-savvy, this entry strikes a false note. While weighing the merits of UC Berkeley vs. NYU, Lara Jean notes that far more romance movies have been set in New York City. However, in a voice-over near the end of the film, Lara Jean says “We’re not like those other couples. We’re Lara Jean and Peter.” This dichotomy of homogeneity vs. uniqueness isn’t adequately addressed in the film. While aesthetically enjoyable, To All The Boys: Always and Forever fails to provide a deeper plot. The film is less like Lara Jean’s wedding cookies, and more like fondant: pretty on the outside, but lacking substance or flavor. While the first film will remain a staple of the high-school romcom canon, this conclusion to the series is best left signed, sealed, and undelivered.
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