From Pretty In Pink to 10 Things I Hate About You, the Eighties and Nineties were the glory days of teen romance. Prolific director John Hughes was behind many of the most memorable films of the era, something that’s referenced in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (TATBILB) with Lara-Jean’s love of his 1984 film Sixteen Candles.
But there’s been a bit of a dearth of not just good teen movies (there’s a reason why Mean Girls is still the most recent high school film most people can quote) but also of decent romantic comedies in the years since. If anything can redress the balance in a cinematic landscape stuffed with superhero blockbusters and action movie trilogies, it’s Netflix. And it’s certainly high school romance season on the streaming service with not one but two major films depicting the giddy intoxication of first loves. With Sarah Burgess Is a Loser and TATBILB, it’s not just staging a teen romance movie comeback but updating the genre for the modern era. And TATBILB’s launch on the site has caused quite a stir.
One of the most important parts of the film is its representation. While Crazy Rich Asians is busy setting the US box office alight, TATBILB is doing the same thing on social media, with more fan accounts dedicated to its leading man Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) than anyone can count. What’s particularly refreshing about the film is not just that it has an Asian-American in the lead and fought off pressure from production companies to swap her race, but that Lara-Jean Covey (Lana Condor)’s ethnicity isn’t a stumbling block but just another facet to her complex identity.
As we see her and Peter’s characters develop and they bond over similarities in their family histories, Lara-Jean’s race feels incidental in the best possible way. And the film is a reminder that while it’s important to have media and art that depict the struggles that people of colour face, these people also deserve to see all the richness of their existences depicted on screen, which means love, heartbreak, friendship, happiness, and the chance to see themselves reflected not just as sidekicks or best friends, but as romantic leads in their own love stories, too.
The film’s softness has been celebrated frequently on social media and in times when the news is reliably awful, it’s unsurprising that lots of people have responded to TATBILB’s celebration of kindness. But that doesn’t mean it less important issues slip through unacknowledged. There are nods to changes in culture, such as Lara-Jean’s assertion that “it’s never worse for the guys” when a compromising video of her leaks. Or when Peter remarks on the racist stereotypes of the character Long Duck Dong in Lara-Jean’s favourite film Sixteen Candles.
These moments aren’t heavy-handed or overdone, just gentle nudges befitting a film that’s groundbreaking in the most heartwarming way.
Available now on Netflix.
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