"Love and dating, I love to read about it, it's fun to write about but when it's real, it's scary"
One of Netflix's originals, To All the Boys I've Loved Before movie screams, teen drama, cliche and shallow love stories, but you can't deny that it's terribly relatable whether you like it or not. I'm a 'in-the-moment' kind of person, so I'm already writing this fifteen minutes after I watched it.
The movie, based off from Jenny Han's novel looks so sweet, something you'd definitely watch again and it would take all your worries away or as I can say, it makes me want to love again. Ugh, sappy as it is, it's nothing but the truth! I'm guilty, okay!
To All the Boys I've Loved Before is probably something out of Wattpad inspirations and is one of the oldest story plots I've been reading before I even started reading: The fake dating story.
In this story though, it starts with Lara Jean Covey, aka LJ, played by Lana Condor, who undeniably loves to read about romance and writes about them but is never the one to experience them, has to fake date Peter Kavinsky, Lara Jean's seventh grade crush, and one of the jock's in school.
It starts after Lara Jean's letters were sent out and the person she's in love with, her sister's ex-boyfriend gets a hold of her letter. And so thus, Peter. Both had other plans in mind, Lara goes with the plan to move on from Josh and for Peter, it's make her ex-girlfriend jealous.
But, those great laid out plans like your summer beach outings just wouldn't stay that way, right? Same way with these two characters who just had to feel the real deal with the fake relationship situation. Though in all honesty, I wasn't expecting Peter to be the one she'll be ending out with. (Hey, Josh was way good looking!)
With those light banters, and Lara Jean's mind set that she's in love with Josh, I wouldn't have thought at first. We see them bonding over different things like talking about the people they liked, their families, and I was really waiting for the Josh confrontation. Their relationship was light, friendly and definitely relatable. Its not the "tension-y" feeling, it was the comfortable one.
As Lara Jean portrays the worries of the awful situation of living in a fantasy in the letters she wrote, her quirkiness behind her being introverted takes the story smoothly. Peter on the other hand seems to be the easy, nice and nothing but sweet.
Who can even miss the way the film looks? You see the suburb feeling out of Lara Jean's neighborhood, and even their outfits, something near to Lizze Mcguire's. Though the film looks so homey and nostalgic of the past, their actions are far from what's happening now. Teen dating is prominently shown when Peter posts photos of him and Lara Jean on his Instagram or when they decided to put each other's picture on their phone wallpaper.
And the film moves away from the typical white centric characters but we are faced with an Asian girl and to see something so rare is a major step up to film representation. At least Jenny Han was keen on keeping her heroine an Asian American.
The movie is like a blanket to my cold, old and cranky heart. It made it feel the warmth, the sweetness and the humor it needed. And for that, a replay with a cup of chocolate instead of a cold beer seems about right.
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