Directed by: Susan Johnson
Screenplay by: Sofia Alvarez
Based on a novel by: Jenny Han
Lara Jean Covey writes letters to all of her past loves, the letters are meant for her eyes only. Until one day when all the love letters are sent out to her previous loves. Her life is soon thrown into chaos when her foregoing loves confront her one by one.
Once again, against my better judgement, I decided to trust a Netflix Original.
Don't get me wrong, some of the Netflix original shows are amazing and actually best TV shows I've seen. But the movies aren't that good. Most of the movies I've seen are so aggressively average it's annoying. I talked about this in my review for How We First Met, and I actually haven't watched another Netflix original movie since. The only one I really liked is Win It All, and I got to admit... I gave it 8/10, but I barely remember it.
When To All the Boys I've Loved Before came out, I added it to my list, like many other Netflix original movies. It seemed cute enough. It almost got ruined for me. Someone I followed on Twitter retweeted so much stuff about it it was annoying. It wasn't spoilers, but it was just endless wave of cutesy tweets about the movie. I ended up blacklisting the characters' names (because the name of the movie was so long it barely appeared in the tweets) and unfollowing the person tweeting those. This seemed like a movie I could like, so seeing all those tweets... They were similar to people who tweet about K-Pop or One Direction. Like you can like whatever you like, but at some point I'm going to get annoyed seeing so many tweets.
And tonight I decided maybe it's time to watch the movie. I just moved so I need something cozy, and I wasn't so annoyed, so... Why not?
Do I regret trusting Netflix this time? Not really. Yes, this movie was again super mediocre, but I ended up liking it just enough.
While everything else was average, there's one thing I enjoyed more than anything else in the movie. The best thing is the cinematography. It's beautiful! Every frame is pretty to look at, the colours and the composition is well designed. It looks like a movie like this should.
The story itself doesn't really reach the point it could. Even if I like the "fake dating" trope, it's pretty typical here. I like the characters, but not enough. But the story is pretty typical and it's exactly what you'd think this story would be like.
The structure is super predictable, but I have to admit, there were some surprises. If a strucutre is predictable, it doesn't automatically mean I know every event that's going down. I just know what route the story will usually take, like "after this thing, the story is probably going to slow and calm down", but sometimes in this movie there was something that felt new and refreshing. Like this kind of movie usually doesn't have this kind of twist here, it's usually elsewhere. And that was kind of nice.
There's something I liked about watching this movie, but it's probably more the feeling of the movie and the cinematography than the actual story. Of course I see why people like this. It's cute and warm and it's easy to watch. It still kind of needs something more, but I think for the intended audience, this is enough.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
6 / 10
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