The To All the Boys series is one of Netflix's most popular properties. The original, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, launched in 2018 to instant fanfare. It became one of the streaming platform's "most viewed original films ever with strong repeat viewing", was praised for its Asian representation, and skyrocketed the career of teen heartthrob Noah Centineo...until his bizarre speech at the 2019 People's Choice awards that is.
2019's follow-up, P.S. I Still Love You, was a sluggish sequel and lost the series some of its momentum. Yet this Valentine's weekend Lara Jean (Lana Condor) returns to Netflix with a third and final chapter as she prepares for the end of high school, the start of adulthood and aims to conclude her story on a high.
Always and Forever is an improvement on its predecessor - it has more charm, less boys and *only* 13 mentions of Lara's cringe-worthy nickname 'Covey'. Instead of Lara Jean being faced with another romantic interest, the film somewhat subverts expectation and positions New York University as the latest strain on her relationship with Peter Kavinsky (Centineo), who would prefer if Lara attended Stanford University with him. This leads to awkward moments of frustrating miscommunication - a skill, to her credit, Lara improves on throughout the film - and selfish attempts at manipulation as the young lovers are adamant that they do not want to become one of 'those couples' that break-up because of moving to college.
Absurdly, Lara's college acceptance dilemma isn't this instalments only focus. The film also tries to juggle:
A family vacation to Korea
The senior year prom
A school trip to New York
Lara's Dad's wedding
Graduation
Kitty's first relationship
Tensions surrounding Trina's maternal role
Peter's estranged relationship with his father
Simply put, 110 minutes is just not long enough to include all of these plot points without the narrative feeling rushed or as thin as a layer of icing on one of Lara's signature cookies. For example, it was rather disheartening when the family's vacation to Seoul ended after a mere 8-minutes. The vibrant yet brief snapshot of Korea featured colourful cupcakes, an amazing sketchbook-style cafe and a sentimental scene visiting the locks at Seoul tower. Whilst there, Lara touches on wishing she could speak Korean and it would have been grounding if the film had taken the time to explore her family's heritage and culture rather than jetting off to New York like most other romantic-comedies - which even Lara (kind of) admits is an overdone genre convention.
Aside from her terrible explanation of a 'meet-cute', Lara's admiration of love and the romantic-comedy is sweet. However, the character's identity gets lost in this wonder. Lara Jean is an amalgamation of rom-com tropes and societal ideals (fuelled by social media): she is obsessed with finding 'their' song, the idea of losing her virginity on prom night, glorifies walking down the staircase to reveal her dress, brainstorms (bad) date ideas inspired by Peter's favourite films and, worst of all, romanticises New York simply because it is the setting of the 'great' rom-coms. In other words, her life choices are influenced by Hollywood's dreamy depiction of love and yet, by the end of the film, she has herself convinced that "love is not like the movies". Some will view Lara's naivety as an annoying weakness but I find her 'hopeless romantic' traits pretty adorable - Condor's performance too. That being said, I would like to see more modern rom-coms spending less time on being self-aware and referencing the genre and more time on establishing their own identity.
Always and Forever gives Lara's youngest sister, and feminist-necklace-wearing, Kitty (Anna Cathcart) a love interest. Although the series' LGBTQ+ representation is disappointingly next-to-none, I enjoyed its refreshing portrayal of femininity. Kitty's crush may be a boy from Seoul, but that does not limit her from enjoying Harry Potter, watching baseball or requesting to wear a tuxedo to her Dad's wedding. This subtly breaks down gender stereotypes (women can enjoy Harry Potter and sport) and undoes the old-fashioned belief that style and interests correspond with sexuality. I did, however, appreciate the pastel-coloured correspondence between the costume and production/set design throughout
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Katie Lovejoy's script also goes full-circle by tying Kitty nicely into the film's finale - she did initiate the story by sending out Lara's love letters, after all. Late on the night of their Dad's wedding, and after a prompt from Kitty, Lara steps inside the idle wedding tent to find an apology letter written by Peter. Peter not only recalls their childhood 'meet-cute' (which is, in fact, cute), but writes the sweetest message. Pair this with an emotional supercut of their relationship and you'll be swooning like a teenage girl. A very satisfying conclusion indeed.
