To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You
TO ALL THE BOYS: P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU - Netflix
NETFLIX’s resident lovebirds Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) and Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before fame are back in the sequel, To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. Audiences last saw Lara Jean and Peter officially declaring they love each other after falling for one another while they were fake dating. P.S. I Still Love You opens with the pair going on their first official date. What looks like a fairytale romance on paper isn’t quite what it seems to be and with another upcoming installment — To All The Boys: Always and Forever, Lara Jean — it’s clear that there’s going to be plenty of couples drama.
With Peter being her first ever boyfriend, Lara Jean is struggling with what it takes to be in a relationship. Peter is a student athlete and introverted Lara Jean struggles with her newfound attention, while also struggling with the attention Peter receives from other girls. In addition to these jealousy issues, John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher) received one of Lara Jean’s love letters sent by her little sister Kitty (Anna Cathcart) in the first film. Keep in mind that the mid-credits scene in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before has been completely retconned, John Ambrose does not show up on the doorstep of the Covey home. In the sequel, Lara Jean does not meet John Ambrose again until they both volunteer at a local senior citizens home.
Based on the To All The Boys book series by Jenny Han, the film adaptations heavily play into the key tropes of young adult fiction and teenage romantic comedies. The tension in Lara Jean and Peter’s blossoming relationship is definitely valid as it is common to feel jealous and insecure in a relationship, especially early on, yet so much of the conflict in P.S. I Still Love You could have easily been mitigated if Lara Jean and Peter had just talked to each other about their insecurities — but where’s the fun in that? This easy solvability of the central conflict becomes apparent in the pacing of the film. A huge portion of the runtime is dedicated to providing backstory to Lara Jean’s, Peter’s and John Ambrose’s middle school friendships, in addition to learning who John Ambrose is today. The rest of the film is fleshed out through romantic subplots experienced by other people in Lara Jean’s life, really going hard in driving home that P.S. I Still Love You is most definitely a romance.
Though the pacing may be off, it’s the chemistry between Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky that makes the audience fans of the series. Peter Kavinsky still is Noah Centineo’s best — and arguably only good — role to date. He embodies Peter so well, but it’s Lana Condor’s lovestruck Lara Jean Covey that is the heart and soul of the To All The Boys film series. Condor’s Lara Jean still loves fairytales and is played with such an innocence that she’s able to convince the audience that Lara Jean is truly struggling with being in a relationship. With the first film, it was so refreshing to see an Asian girl be the centre of a teen romance. This round, there are even more sprinklings of the Covey sisters being half-Korean as they participate in Korean New Year celebrations and listen to K-Pop, an important move for representation that doesn’t feel shoehorned into the film for the sake of diversity. It’s a shame that Lana Condor hasn’t experienced the same skyrocketing career projection as Centineo as she is, by far, the better half of the Lara Jean Covey and Peter Kavinsky saga.
TO ALL THE BOYS: P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX February 12th 2020