Lara Jean or ”Largie” is back with a Largie portion of mixed feelings. She is now for the first time in her well behaved life an official girlfriend. Peter Kavinsky is there besides her as she takes yet another stroll down her letter sending lane. The letters got out but in the first movie, one of them didn’t get the screen time it deserved, so we are circling back to what will now be a monstrous love triangle.
“To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You”, the Netflix original movie, was released on the 12 of February. The 2020 American romantic comedy adaptation of the book by Jenny Han follows the Korean-Caucasian Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor), a 17 year old peculiar teenager with a predisposition to scrapbooking, daydreaming about love and imagining conversations. However, she is a goody two shoes who doesn’t get out much and who finds solace in baking. That changes when Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) enters her life after her little sister, Kitty, mails her five love letters to boys she has never had the courage to admit her feelings to. In P.S I Still Love You we get yet another fresh perspective about what a girl faces when an old crush resurfaces, John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher). The movie makes us acquainted with Ashe’s song Moral of the story, released on Valentine’s Day 2019 which is put to perfect use here.
Directed by Michael Fimognari as opposed to the first “To all the boys I’ve loved before” which was directed by Susan Johnson, “To all the boys: P.S. I still love you” is the second movie of this movie franchise. Also, opposed to the first film this one lacks a little of the panache the first movie abundantly threw at the audience. Michael Fimognari managed to get a visually aesthetic, pleasing, trendy look of the film through the aquarium scene, Lara Jean’s bedroom, the lantern scene. However, PS I Still Love You is a great continuation which focuses more on the expectations of a first relationship. What is refreshing about this perspective is Noah Centineos’ character embodiment as the goofy, charismatic, clear in thought and soul lacrosse player who genuinely loves and cares for Lara Jean in a non-awkward way but in a full on approach. The yet maybe not so obvious focus seen in both films is on the childhood memories which explain the context of the now materialized love. Teenage girls can correlate with Lara Jean, we can see and hear everything she is thinking and her thoughts which are sometimes delusional are very golden apple ripe sprinkled with a lot of innocence and an attentive outlook on others: “For every first I was having with him, he already had his with her”. Costume designer Lorraine Carson gave a colorful insight into the characters personalities through their fashion statements each unique in their own way. In the movie we get to see some traditional Korean outfits as well as Lara Jean is fashionable in a vintage, comfy, child like style.
The innocent lollipop Lara Jean gets a little stranded in the Bermuda Love Triangle but not before she gets some wisdom whispered into her little head from Stormy (Holland Taylor), her fairy godmother like figure. At the end we have a little too much of a Cinderella resemblance which was a bit of a letdown, but given the childhood remembrance that gave us pleasure, we can let that one slide. However, we can’t let go of the fact that the movie was a bit more caged. The most exciting thing was John Ambroses’ return into Lara’s life by accident and not even that was that exciting. Thankfully, Noah Centineo and Lana Condor kept the electric buzz alive with their great on set chemistry and their more than loveable characters. Another weird, disappointing as well as very noticeable fact was the YouTube baking tutorials like shots of Lara Jean baking. They seemed very similar to baking DIYs shots, however the outcome looked delicious.
The primordial focus of this movie is opposites attract versus people who are like two peas in a pod. It is an explosion of sweet palette, with reflective notes of a young girls mind as she pushes through chalk on a whiteboard screeching type of obstacles. It also tackles the question When you have two great options who do you choose? Although it doesn’t bring anything new into discussion, the film can be profusely enjoyed on a lazy Sunday afternoon and it will make you either remember how it was like to be a 17 year old or it will make you want to be a 17 year old.
