Oh fuck! Shit’s gotten crazy since our last blog post! There’s a literal pandemic and people are sick and we’re all at home and public places are closed and all the movie release dates are getting pushed back and everyone’s watching a docuseries about a man that owns a fuck ton of tigers!!! Needless to say, the cinema landscape has changed quite a bit of late. But fear not! There is still an endless amount of just downright horrible content on all those streaming platforms that can be viewed oh so comfortably (and safely) in your home.
As such, this week I present to you one of Netflix’s latest releases, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You. This film is, of course, the subsequent installment of Lara Jean and Peter’s love story that was kicked off in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, with both films being adapted from Jenny Han’s YA novel of the same name and its sequel. This is all very exciting, as the whole romance genre is new territory for this blog. And yet, I really don’t know how it took this long.
Just as profound is the love story between L.J. and P.K., so too is the storied history between disgruntled critics and YA novel adaptations. A now decades-long series of such adaptations has proved a bottomless well for films that tend not to impress those who review them.
For example, literally every fucking Nicholas Sparks adaptation ever. A Walk to Remember (27%), The Vow (31%), Dear John (29%), The Best of Me (10%… ouch.), Safe Haven (13%), the list literally goes on forever. And I know what you’re thinking: “But what about The Notebook?! That’s a classic!” Well, actually, despite it ultimately becoming a fan favorite, that film didn’t score too well with critics either, landing only a 53% critics-like-it.
But I mean, shit, these movies make money!! Even The Choice (11%)– which, like, whose favorite Nicholas Sparks adaptation is that??—more than doubled its budget at the box office. And that’s why not only do studios keep cashing in on these highly predictable sop-fests, but others have followed suit (and gotten similar reviews). From film adaptations of Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star, to Joy Moyes’s Me Before You and John Green’s Paper Towns, not a single one has gotten positive ratings from critics.
Now is the time where I interrupt my rambling, albeit point-proving, listing off of your mother’s favorite films to give a huge shout out to a movie that did what all these others failed to do: The Fault In Our Stars (81%, certified fresh baby). Keep doing you TFIOS, you’re killing it. So proud of you.
And actually, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before managed the same hattrick! With an astounding 97% positive from critics, even someone who hates sequels as much as me knows you don’t just follow that by NOT making the sequel (especially when the second book already exists). But I’m not quite so sure they killed it the second time around.
To be fair, To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You technically didn’t get bad reviews. But upon conferring with my roommates who had already seen the film, I was met with evaluations ranging from “so cringey” to “seriously so bad.” I cross-referenced such appraisals with the film’s reviews on Letterboxd (a social media app for cinephiles to rate movies) and saw that its average score was 2.6 out of 5 stars. Good enough for me! Or rather… bad enough.
One-Sentence Synopsis:
Teens in love! (Yeah, that pretty much covers it.)
My Review:
Jesus Christ, what is up with all this product placement?! First Sonic, now this. Subway: the next great production company. These mofos have their absurd product placement in both of the To All the Boys movies!! When people talk about needing “continuity” in a film, I don’t think this is what they mean. It’s weird and it takes me out of the film every time and it makes me angry.
Speaking of the first movie, don’t worry about re-watching it in order to refresh yourselves with the plot before delving into the sequel. About ten minutes into P.S. I Love You, Lara Jean’s little sister conveniently gives a super manic recap of the entire plot of To All the Boys in conversation with a cousin the sisters are trying to impress. Kinda strange, but didn’t mind it terribly. Maybe all sequels should just do this! Ha, just kidding. But it wasn’t so horrible.
Something else that I can’t quite decide whether it’s alright or if it just weirds me out too much to enjoy the film: Noah Centineo. I have this theory that he’s actually just a cyborg created by the corporate overlords at Netflix in order to churn out perfectly marketable content for hormonal tweens. I mean just scroll through his tweets below. Who the hell comes up with this shit?
But sometimes I think his wires get a little crossed and he malfunctions…
Careful, Netflix. I’m onto you.
All in all, this movie didn’t inspire much. It was seriously average at best. Not much to truly despise, but nothing that particularly moved me either. With the exception of a couple cool technical decisions like the dope dolly shot at approximately one hour and seventeen minutes into the movie in which Lana Condor appears to be actually standing on the dolly with the camera, giving it a “floating effect” (apparently Spike Lee invented this shot!), this movie truly failed to wow. It ended in the same place where it began with some predictable drama and very little character development in between… meh.
Scoring Rubric: (On a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most compelling)
- Romance – 1/5
- Camera – work 3/5
- Character development – 1/5
- Potential Netflix cyborg conspiracy – 5/5
Now, before any of you risk COVID-infection and travel across the country to slit my throat for shitting on any of the movies that made your cold, confused pubescent heart feel something when you were 13, let me just say, I love rom-coms… even shitty ones. I literally cried during Me Before You and, yes, The Notebook is absolutely a classic (fuck you, critics!). Meanwhile, I did not get the hype about the first To All the Boys film. Solidly mediocre IMO. But that’s why this blog exists! Because there’s always some good in the bad and some bad in the good (that sounds like a goddamn Noah Centineo tweet) and there’s no accounting for taste! So while you social distance, take this much needed down time to treat yourself to a film or two. And whether it’s a world-renowned cinematic masterpiece or just one of those movies you love to hate, enjoy!
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Additional Sources:
- Movie ratings: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/
- “Floating camera” shot: https://amaribjones.wordpress.com/auteur-theory-spike-lee/
Who Let These Movies Happen? 
This blog post really made me laugh. I was forced against my will to watch the first movie of this series and vowed I would not watch this sequel when it came out. Needless to say, I’m not surprised by how terrible it sounds. The product placement is a new low, though, because it really takes away any semblance of this being a legitimate piece of cinema. Really tacky actually, but makes the whole thing even more laughable.
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This post was really interesting to read because I literally just watched this movie yesterday, and I couldn’t agree more with what you had to say about it. I have always thought there is something very unusual about Noah Centineo so I am glad someone else sees it too… all else aside, I think more than predictability, this movie lacked growth as you said, and none of the characters seemed to impress me. Also, I really liked what you said about The Notebook because no matter what people/critics say, I love that movie haha
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Hey Hannah,
I love that your writing sound exactly like you in class. You are a funny and witty gal and that translates through your writing. The style is humorous and quite factual too, I never realized how bad the critiques reviewed Nicholas Sparks (I still love the movies though, I’m a chick-flick kind of gal). Also I never realized Noah Centineo was that kind of strange, then again I only know of his onscreen personas so who would of thought. Thank you for your dedication to your blogs and stay safe.
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