To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Premise - In a small secure box in her room, a teenage girl has stored letters she wrote to her most devastating crushes throughout her lifetime. When her younger sister, in an attempt to get her sister a boyfriend, sends the letters out to their respective recipients, she enters a fake relationship with one of them to assure the others that she is not actually in love with the others, especially her sister's ex-boyfriend, who can never know of her true feelings.
Review - Personally, I felt that this was an excessively average movie. I cannot for the life of me understand why it blew up as voraciously as it did, except for perhaps among a younger generation of teens for whom this would be more novel. The only thing that stood out as being unique was the fact that it starred an Asian female. But even that I had some problems with. She is half-Asian, along with her two sisters, but I felt as though none of the three siblings looked related? I suppose they did in the sense that they all looked part-Asian, but they didn't look to be the same ethnicity at all and it really took me out of the moment.
I did find our protagonist to be incredibly relatable, minus her happy ending. I was always a hopeless romantic as well, and of course I would write about my devastatingly deep crushes, but never in a million years did I actually get a cool love story like this. Nevertheless, it was fun to indulge the fantasy once again. A bit ironic, as the film is about no longer fantasizing and actually going out and falling in love yourself.
A couple plot things that stood out to me. Actually, what I should acknowledge first is that overall I thought the structure of the film was incredibly weak. The fake relationship plot felt forced, and that was... basically... the entire plot. The idea of having her letters sent out to all her crushes though, was genius. What an excellent teen rom-com premise. To get nitpicky about the plot though, the one scene that really stood out to me was how much backlash she got over hooking up with her boyfriend in the hot tub. Everyone acted so surprised and I'm like... huh? They've been (fake) dating for months?? Why is that weird??
I'm not sure how much my impression of the film would be different if I went in blind. The film has been out for several months and has appeared all over the internet. I've seen buzzfeed articles, gifsets, thumbnails for youtube fanvids, so of course I knew which boy she actually ends up with. One complaint I heard from others, though, is that when watching the film for the first time with no context, there is no clear indicator where the narrative is headed, and which boy we're supposed to be rooting for.
Given how much I've torn this film apart, the score I'm giving probably seems higher than expected, but I truly was entertained. Just on a very surface level. (76/100)
Quote - "I like me better when I'm with you." I liked the entire soundtrack to this film, but this was the song that stood out to me the most. I knew it before I had seen the film, and when I looked it up all the comments were about how great the soundtrack to this film was, so it piqued my interest.
What to watch for - Umm... I'm not sure what to tell you there. I know a whole generation of teenage girls fell in love with Noah Centineo, and he's fairly attractive.
If you liked this film, I'd recommend John Tucker Must Die!
Based on the novel by Jenny Han
Directed by Susan Johnson
Distributed by Netflix
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