Netflix’s To All the Boys: Always and Forever – A Fitting Bookend to the Love Letter Trilogy

When the To All the Boys series first started in 2018, the coming of age genre was making a comeback, pivoting as a means to adapt to the modern digital age of teenage life. Instantly audiences were drawn in by the love story of Lara Jean Song Covey (Condor) and Peter Kavinsky (Centineo) as they navigated high school and the complications that come with it. As the story evolved it added subplots surrounding the characters in Lara Jean’s life without ever losing the emotional backbone at its core. Now with the finale in this trilogy, To All the Boys: Always and Forever, now upon us, Lara Jean faces a bigger challenge than falling in love, but staying in it. (click here for our reviews of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and To All the Boys: P.S., I Still Love You)

To All the Boys: Always and Forever picks up during Spring Break of senior year as students are impatiently awaiting the results of their college applications. With Peter going to Stanford on a lacrosse scholarship, he’s excited to be starting this new chapter with Lara Jean. However, her life turns upside-down when she receives her Stanford results and must decide on an alternate that can keep her relationship intact while still doing what’s best for her. While they rope with these decisions through the last few months of high school, Lara Jean and Peter must also deal with life-changing family moments that add some clarity to the end of their high school journeys.

It would be a lie to say that this film isn’t overly cheesy or predictable in its character arcs, but is anything more really expected from a film that has its protagonist constantly watching classic romantic comedies? Not really, because that doesn’t really matter, and quite frankly the campy cheesiness of this high school romance is what drew audiences into the Lara Jean and Peter saga.  However, it no longer deals with the typical falling in love storyline as that has been the focus through the first two films. Now it’s dealing with staying in love and how to do that when life doesn’t follow your meticulous plan.

This revelation puts both Lara Jean and Peter at a crossroads that forces them to deal with their own insecurities, anxieties and fears surrounding moving farther apart (even in an era where technology keeps us more connected than ever). It causes them to act in cliched rom-com ways to keep the tension and the inevitable will-they-won’t-they question intact which at times does come across as flat, but thanks to the innate charm between Condor and Centineo, these moments are short and forgivable. In fact, their acting is quite good throughout To All the Boys: Always and Forever as they struggle with these internal issues, one scene in particular between Peter and his father feels incredibly authentic.

Beyond the cast, there is some slight difference in the stylistic choices this time around. Fimognari returns as director/cinematographer after doing the same for P.S. I Still Love You. While that film was divided into chapters, this film’s division is done more through hand-drawn moments that break apart the acts. However aside from that, the film continues to boast the same colorful aesthetic and quirky framing (give us all the cooking montages!).

There was one moment in the film that felt a bit awkwardly paced as two characters speak to each other in separate close ups causing them to pause continuously through their conversation which felt unnatural, but that was just one minor nitpicky observance in a film that oozes feel-good moments and escapism. It thrives off nostalgia, family and what it means to find first love and hold on to that love even if life puts a storm in your path.

The love letter saga of Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky may be over, but at least it got a charming send-off as they head into their next chapter of their lives.

still courtesy of Netflix

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Guest Writer