The boys from my teen years are trapped in amber: imperfect and spotty and a little underwhelming. And that is exactly how they should remain, bless them. I remember their jogging bottoms, you see, so I just can’t slip on rose-tinted specs. My recollections are affectionate, not romantic, and that’s OK.
But the teen boys of the movies are an entirely different kettle of fish. They are trapped in amber, too, but they gleam effortlessly. Movies have a magic that gives everything a sheen: their hair is glossier, their smiles bashful and pearly.
I am thinking of how movies reproduce the feeling of crushing on fictional boys so well, because like everyone else, I have fallen for Peter Kavinsky from the Netflix romcom To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, and I can’t get up. Please, do not send help.
One of the jobs of film is to create the feeling of collective immersion: so many of us, all feeling the same things, about the same fictional person. It’s powerful stuff. Kavinsky (played by Noah Centineo, with his perfectly imperfect chin scar, argh!) exists in a continuum of flawed but fixable (white) boys I have known in the movies. Hello again, Jake Ryan (Sixteen Candles), Zack Siler (She’s All That) and Patrick Verona (10 Things I Hate About You). Even back then I was aware that these gilded lives were free of real conflict (and angry acne), but who wants to overdose on “real”?
Regardless of era, I think we can all agree that real teen boys have only ever been great in theory. But Peter Kavinsky? Sublime, mate. Look at him, effortlessly engaging in tasteful public displays of affection; being responsible about driving home by drinking kombucha instead of booze!
Peter Kavinsky is not real, and that’s what makes my heart flutter exactly as it did 20-odd years ago.
