Review: To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

To All the Boys I Loved Before is a teenage romance film starring Lana Condor as Lara Jean Covey (I didn't realise how similar their names were until I typed that), an Asian-American high school girl who has never had a boyfriend. However, she has been in love before, or thinks she has, with five boys. She has never been able to confront any of them with her feelings face to face, but has written each of them an addressed love letter, all of which she keeps hidden in a special box. However, the letters are all posted one day and Lara Jean is confronted with the results of her crushes reactions. Two of these five crushes include her sister Margot's boyfriend Josh (Israel Broussard), and the on-off again boyfriend of her ex-best friend, Peter (Noah Centineo, who is rather like a young Mark Ruffalo), who realises that an advantage might have arrived with the letter he received...

This is going to sound pretentious coming from a film critic (particularly one in her early twenties who is only a self-professed and actually unofficial one), but I feel I am seeing more films that leave me with an overwhelming sense of "What was the point of that?"

Don't mistake my meaning here, I did enjoy this film. It's admittedly has some moments I can only describe as dumb (see my "Quote of the film" as a key example), but it's light-hearted, fun and a lot of care seems to have gone into it. Everyone acts well in it (and the high school kids for the most part actually DO look like the ages they are playing). I like how this cast is diverse without rubbing it in the audiences face. Instead of "Wow, what a culturally diverse cast this film has", you think "Wow, these teenagers actually feel like teenagers and it's nice to see how their lives are shown as individuals with their own worries and happinesses in life". I enjoyed having a mix raced family as the protagonists, and that the girls father (played by John Corbett) didn't have the dominating gene to make his daugthers look like him (he is white and the girls mother was Vietnamese), but this wasn't ever an issue. He's a good dad who tries his best and that's what matters, not what he looks like in relation to his kids.

While I like most of the acting in this film very much, a personal highlight in the cast for me is Anna Cathcart as Lara Jean's younger sister Kitty, who manages to amuse every time she is onscreen. The dialogue here is witty enough when it needs to be and sad enough when it needs to be. The two romantic leads have good chemistry together. The two sentences prior to this one, oddly and unfortunately, highlight my problem with the film.

You know who Lara Jean is going to end up with even before the letters are sent out. They already have good chemistry together. I won't name the male character in case there are people who do want to be surprised, (somewhat hypocritical I know, as this blog tends to be of a spoilery nature), but you'll know how this film is going to end almost as soon as he appears onscreen. Here's the thing though: the film wants you to be happy when they "finally" get together at the end (and this is a chick flick, come on, someone ends up with someone, it's not a spoiler).

So, when you know how a film is going to end, who ends up together and gets the happily ever after, where are the stakes? What is there to keep you passionate and excited about these two people when it actually already feels like they have been together from start to finish?

Luckily, all of the characters you are supposed to like remain likeable for the entire running time, so you want to keep watching them. Even that brings up some problems. There are so many things about these characters I want to know, that are either never discussed or that are brought up but never answered. What did Lara Jean think of Fight Club? How are we supposed to feel about the final scene with Gen, Lara Jean's ex best friend? Did Kitty ever meet up with the younger brother of one of Lara Jean's love letter receivers, as promised but never shown? How did that go? Anyway, it was a good way to inspire me to want to read the original book of the same title by Jenny Han, which I will certainly seek out one day.

Overall, I did enjoy this film and will definitely revisit it. It did everything it set out to do well, it just lacked the surprise punches it needed to keep me from seeing straight through the plot from the moment it started.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 2, 5, 7 (x2, bonus point), 14, 15 (you have the best friend and the sister here, so again, bonus point), 17, 18, 21, 32, 40, 42, 50 (when Lara Jean cleans her room), 51, 52 (+5 points), 53, 55, 56, 58, 59.

Total: 26

Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? It's a chick flick, but it's also one of the better Netflix original films. You could use that in an argument to convince non-chick flick fans to watch it?

Would I recommend this film? Yes

Quote of the film: "It wasn't tongueless to me!" - Gen, talking about a kiss.

Film rating: 6/10