They grow up so fast, don’t they? Back in 2018, Netflix’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before proved a zippy and colourful high school romcom in the 10 Things I Hate About You and Sixteen Candles vein. It’s a genre that’s rare to see extended into a trilogy, but after hitting big, the streaming service shot back-to-back adaptations of Jenny Han’s second and third novels, taking its central couple — smart-and-sweet Lara Jean Song Covey (Lana Condor) and sporty-but-sensitive Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) — beyond the first film’s ‘happily ever after’. In solid sequel P.S. I Still Love You, that meant introducing a love triangle with the arrival of Jordan Fisher’s John Ambrose, in a story thread spun surprisingly organically from the original film’s hooky premise (Lara Jean writes love letters to boys she fancies and stores them safely in a box — until her younger sister mails them all out, causing crush-chaos). But in final chapter Always And Forever, the To All The Boys series has more serious things on its mind: what happens to a high-school romance when high school ends?
Inevitably, that means this one leans more heavily on the ‘rom’ than the ‘com’ (with a dollop of ‘dram’ in there too). While Lara Jean and Peter are still “totally relationship goals”, as one classmate tells them, the future seems fuzzy: Peter has a lacrosse scholarship to the prestigious Stanford, and Lara Jean plans to go there too — but when she doesn’t get in, their bond is tested. To its credit, Always And Forever doesn’t offer any obvious path for how all of this will resolve. If it seems sacrosanct to split up your central duo at the end of the final film, Lara Jean’s rejection from Stanford brings up a more important question: beyond being with Peter, what does she want for her future?
If it’s a more mature chapter of the story, there are still all of the usual teen-movie trappings — over-the-top ‘prom-posals’, emotional deployments of vintage tunes (non-Gen Z-ers, prepare yourself that Oasis is now considered classic rock), and bouncy teen dialogue, all delivered in the series’ signature Instagram-friendly pastel palette. And there are lavish travels too, making Always And Forever feel more expansive than its predecessor (much of which took place in, er, an old folks’ home). In scenes that will bring major FOMO to locked-down audiences, there’s an energetic school jaunt to New York, which opens Lara Jean’s eyes to the idea that there might be more out there than just her high-school boyfriend, and a family trip to Seoul, offering a greater exploration of Lara Jean’s Korean-American identity and the impact of the loss of her mother. (In one short but significant scene, she tells Peter that Korean people speak to her in the native language and expect her to understand them, and she feels discomfort at not being able to.)
It’s about Lara Jean making her own decisions for her own reasons, taking genuine agency over her future direction.
Peter, too, gets into more emotionally knotty territory here, as his absentee father (Henry Thomas) turns up and tries to make up for lost time. It’s rare to see a series give this much extra depth to one of its leads in the third instalment, not only fleshing him out but also revealing new layers around why his bond with Lara Jean is so important. And with Lara Jean’s dad (John Corbett) getting hitched to lovely neighbour Trina (Sarayu Blue), and scene-stealing younger sister Kitty (Anna Cathcart) striking up a long-distance online relationship with Korean boy Dae (Ho-Young Jeon), who — gasp! — doesn’t like Harry Potter, even the side characters get room to grow.
All of which is to say that the light frothiness of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before isn’t the aim here — if the first entry was a teen romcom and the second was a teen melodrama, Always And Forever is more a coming-of-age story, one that offers surprisingly nuanced explorations of what it means to look beyond the end of your high-school years without easy or convenient solutions. Most refreshingly, it’s also about Lara Jean making her own decisions for her own reasons, taking genuine agency over her future direction.
It all helps that Lara Jean and Peter are relationship goals — Condor and Centineo are so sweet and have such chemistry that you’ll be rooting for them to make it together, especially when all the odds are stacked against them. And come the conclusion — which we won’t spoil — there’s a heartfelt declaration that deserves to stand alongside 10 Things’ classroom sonnet and Say Anything’s boombox moment (which gets directly referenced here, along with — weirdly enough — The Big Lebowski) in the pantheon of swoon-some gestures.
A teen-movie romcom trilogy shouldn’t necessarily work — but the To All The Boys trilogy proves that it can, offering room to grow while staying true to the heart of the original story. Always And Forever seals the deal with a final chapter that not only does right by its central characters, but by extension does right by its audience too. It’s one last love letter that delivers all the feels.
