To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020)
dir. Michael Fimognari
Rated: TV-14
image: ©2020 Netflix
What’s the next step up from cotton candy when comparing entertainment to food? Pop rocks? Gummy bears? I’m asking because Netflix’s release To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is that. It’s not as ephemeral as cotton candy; it feels more substantial. That’s mostly due to its charm, which comes from the effervescence of the entire cast. P.S. is the sequel to Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the movie that took the internet by storm in 2018. Both films are based on author Jenny Han’s trilogy of best-selling books. The third film is in post-production as of this writing.
P.S. I Still Love You chronicles the ongoing high-school romantic adventures of our hero, Lara Jean Covey. The first movie focused on the fallout when Lara Jean’s little sister, Kitty, found and mailed five secret love letters Lara Jean wrote in middle school to her five different crushes. The sequel picks up shortly after the events of the first movie. Lara Jean is now dating one of those crushes, Peter Kavinsky. Things get complicated when one of the other letter recipients, John Ambrose McClaren, writes back to Lara Jean – he has since transferred to another school – to let her know how much he appreciated receiving the years-old letter.
It’s a fairly basic form of romantic conflict: two people fall in love, but before they can live happily ever after, a rival from the past shows up to test their relationship. But Sofia Alvarez and J. Mills Goodloe’s screenplay – and, I’m assuming, Han’s book, though I haven’t read any of them – does dig a little deeper. As Lara Jean works through her feelings for both Peter and John Ambrose, she contemplates ideas like “the road not taken,” and the veracity of the concept “happily ever after.”
She does this while not handling the situation particularly well. She hides things from Peter, like waiting to tell him until the last possible minute that she and John Ambrose are volunteering at the same retirement home. She also conveniently forgets to mention to John Ambrose that she is dating Peter (the two boys were good friends in middle school), until the three of them get together to dig up a time capsule that they buried years ago. She handles it exactly like you might expect a teenager would, especially considering this is the first time Lara Jean has ever had a boyfriend.
The movie also makes time for some heartfelt moments for Lara Jean’s dad, who is finally ready to make a love connection again after the death of Lara Jean and Kitty’s mom. P.S. opens with a nod to the girls’ ethnic heritage – their mom was Korean and their dad is white – when they dress in traditional Korean clothing for a trip to visit their maternal grandparents. Lara Jean comments in voice over why her dad is so invested in keeping his daughters connected to their mother’s side of the family. It’s because that’s a way for him to still feel close to his deceased wife. It’s those little moments of human connection that give these movies something special.
In addition to the above-average writing, both the charming cast and squeaky-clean aesthetic of P.S. I Still Love You are hard to resist. My enjoyment of the series thus far might be a “right time, right place” effect of needing cheery, escapist entertainment at a moment when the real world offers up mostly doom and gloom.
It’s a damn delight to spend a few hours with the charismatic Lana Condor as Lara Jean. There’s also the affable charm of Noah Centineo (I haven’t been convinced yet that he’s not related to Mark Ruffalo) as Peter Kavinsky, as well as singer/dancer/actor Jordan Fisher as newcomer John Ambrose. Meanwhile, John Corbett is filled with awe-shucks befuddlement as Lara Jean’s dad.
Holland Taylor has fun with her role as Stormy, one of the residents of the retirement home who becomes something of a mentor to Lara Jean. While the character is enjoyable enough, it’s the one element that threatened to expel me from the escapism of the picture. Stormy chiding Lara Jean for using the “P.C.” term flight attendant instead of stewardess to describe what Stormy did before retiring is one example. Another is when she throws around the terms socialist and communist to describe different cliques around the old-folks home. It’s like Stormy is the real world trying to infiltrate this cozy, comfy oasis to which I’ve retreated.
The coziness that director Michael Fimognari captures in P.S. matches perfectly with what director Susan Johnson established in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Because of scheduling conflicts, Johnson had to hand over directing responsibilities for the sequel, but she served as a producer. Fimognari handled director of photography duties on the first film. The two collaborated to ensure a consistent aesthetic (both in terms of the look and emotional feel) for the movies.
YA romance like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You might never seem like Important Cinema to blowhards like me, but there is absolutely something to be said for the breezy, undemanding entertainment we can all get out of a well-made movie. That’s especially true in a time when our country is on fire because an aspiring tin-pot dictator is gleefully taking a wrecking ball to the rule of law.
So yeah, as long as the quality is high enough – which is the case here – this kind of escapism isn’t only welcome, it’s necessary. To mix my metaphor from the top, it’s like a vacation. P.S. I Still Love You is like sitting on a beach, eating gummy bears. And I’ve always enjoyed gummy bears, even if they contain zero nutritional value.
Why it got 3 stars:
- To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is almost as enjoyable as its predecessor. The only real reason for that is because the first movie was something new; this one goes back to the same (albeit very entertaining) well.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- The filmmakers really know how to hook us early with an exacting homage to the opening sequence of Adventures in Babysitting. That scene alone is worth the price of admission.
- Sorry, movie, but old people don’t say “suck it” yet. Give it another 20 or 30 years.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Netflix and watch it at home.