To begin with, I never expected to be as engrossed in this movie as I was from the very start. "To All The Boys I've Loved Before," inspired by Jenny Han's book of the same title, is something fresh for fans of rom-coms.
Too often now romantic comedies are so cheesy that they aren't good but this movie found the right spot of lovingly adorable and cheesy. Also, can we just be super happy that someone chose to make this movie on a character who isn't white like that's super great and should be happening with way more movies!
Lara Jean Covey is this quirky mix of adorable and completely awkward.
Her family is fun, I mean who doesn't want John Corbett as a dad plus two equally adorable sisters. It's a total cliche movie in a lot of ways but nothing about the story is unlikeable. Lara Jean has written five letters to all the boys she's ever liked. One of them is her best friend/sister's boyfriend Josh, who isn't really as great as I think Lara Jean is making him out to be. When her sister breaks up with him it sparks something in Lara Jean.
She's too considerate of her sister to ever tell him she loves him so she sits and does nothing with any of her feelings. Another one of her letters is to Peter, who let's be honest is a dreamboat but taken by Lara Jean's nemesis/ex-best friend.
The letters to all five boys get sent out none day and she's confronted by basically all of the boys, most importantly Josh and Peter. This all leads to Lara Jean and Peter "fake" dating so that he can make his ex-girlfriend jealous and she can make Josh believe she doesn't like him because of her sister.
Now, that part is sort of a cliche of teen rom coms with the less popular girl dating the popular guy to get his girl back but it's not that way at all.
You really fall in love with this movie because you enjoy watching Peter learn to truly fawn over Lara Jean because she's so spectacular and she doesn't realize that. The romantic in me adores this movie and sure (SPOILER) I knew they'd end up together but there's just something about watching two people fall in love.
Netflix is really breaking out some super cute movies in the rom-com department. "The Kissing Both," which was actually equally as cute as "To All The Boys I've Loved Before," was another surprising Netflix original. There aren't many cute and cheesy-ish movies coming out lately that aren't just about physical connections between teens and young adults and while this movie has it's fair share of sexual tension it displays so much more than that.
So Netflix, keep up the good work and produce more cute rom-coms like "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" to give us better, but still slightly unrealistic, hope in the love lives we want.
