As this issue comes out on the day where many people show their true deep feelings for one another, it also becomes the perfect time to grab a pint of ice cream and get cozy under a blanket to either rewatch or discover some classics (unless you got someone you can spend that time with).
There always seems to be endless romance movies until you’ve finished them all, especially with teenage love stories. Of course you can’t ever go wrong with a “high school love story”, a cliche within films that leaves us either swooning or balling our eyes out. From movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, Sixteen Candles, 13 Going on 30, etc. They all have teenage girls romanticizing over the possibilities of love within the close proximity of high school. What if I find my soulmate? What If I find my high school sweetheart? It’s a never ending cycle of rising our hopes up as we indulge into the world of Rom Coms.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a more modern depiction of this cliche of high school love. It shows how these films have built up the typical image of how a girl really wants to be loved within the most vulnerable years of their lives. Lara Jean Song Covey, a Korean American and also a middle child within a family of one older sister and younger sister. Lara Jean loves to be a hopeless romantic with her collection of romance novels and quirky personality. I feel that she has the perfect family dynamic as well as she has the help of her sisters to help her navigate the new experiences and chaos in her life, along with also teaching her youngest sister of all her troubles.
Kitty, her younger sister, had other plans in mind when it came to Lara Jean’s love life. Lara Jean is quite like me, she loves to write her feelings out. It’s a pretty healthy way to get over things I would suggest, just that she wrote five letters to five boys in an effort to get over them. But at our young ages, crushes and love are such complicated first experiences as we have no idea how to comprehend our own feelings let alone someone else’s. So Kitty took it into her own account and decided to mail those letters out to all of the boys she has ever had a crush. Personally, I would never leave my room. Never.
Yet this turned into Lara Jean facing her fears and facing her feelings head on, especially with Peter Kravinsky, a lacrosse player and undoubtedly the most popular guy at school. What she discovered is that putting herself out there would not come back to haunt her, it got her head out of her fictional books and love letters. She was able to see what love is like in real life instead of just in her imagination.
I loved how the movie started off with Lara Jean daydreaming about her as a princess of some sort within a field, waiting for her Prince Charming to find her. However this so-called prince was her sister’s ex-boyfriend (wouldn’t be a rom com without some crazy drama). She was definitely a girl who is very in her head, which isn’t a bad thing, but throughout the movie as she let her personality and interests shine, she also became brighter as she found that Peter Kavinsky wasn’t some jock that didn’t care for her feelings. Peter wanted to discover more about her interesting personality and more about her culture as well. He was making high school more cherishable to her (even if it started off as a “pretend relationship”, another classic trope). She was allowed to grow with these new experiences and find new perspectives in her life that wouldn’t be found within all of her novels.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before really depicts how girlhood has to do so much more just than emotional growth. We all have so much to say, so much to express, but we have it all closed off within us all just waiting to blossom and to be exposed to the right person or people as well who will appreciate it. This someone who you can be most vulnerable and comfortable with as you share these years together.
Throughout all three films, we see how love blossoms but also how hardships and challenges arise with it as college and responsibilities hit hard for Lara Jean and Peter as they navigate their dreams but still continue to grow together. They are the epitome of always keeping a good thing close to you no matter where you go. Distance never matters if the love one has is strong enough to keep on being carried along with you no matter the challenges that life brings.
There has also been a series made just for Lara Jean’s sister Kitty, XO, Kitty is continuing the journey of how college life can also be just as chaotic as high school. Kitty got to show how it is also one of the best years of growth as she discovers love and tries to connect with another place she can call home within Korea, essentially going back to her roots and discovering a bigger journey for herself.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before really started as a film with beautiful cinematography might I add, but also an outlet for teenage girls to dream bigger than they already do. The similarities in scenes within both the movies and XO, Kitty really brought out the bond of sisterhood. Both Kitty and Lara Jean are experiencing the most ground-breaking experiences of their lives as their feelings and love grow. Their sweet love stories are the ones that keep our standards rising to the top, or mainly just stories that keep hopeless romantics dreaming for their time to come.
