One of Netflix’s most successful romcoms in 2018 was the movie adaptation of the well-loved, best-selling book, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han (highly recommended for a feel-good read!). Now, Lara Jean’s story continues in To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You.
If you’re not familiar, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, is about a Korean-American girl named Lara Jean Covey who wrote passionate letters to all her crushes in her early years. Although she had no intention of sending them, her quiet high school life is turned upside down when she finds her love letters – five in total – have been sent to her past crushes. To make things even more complicated, she starts fake dating resident jock, Peter Kavinsky, who was one of the recipients of her letters, to hide her crush from her sister’s ex-boyfriend Josh, who also received a letter.
In this sequel, P.S. I Still Love You follows her story as she struggles with her new status as Peter Kavinsky’s (real) girlfriend and tries to come to terms with Peter’s seemingly undying connection to his ex-girlfriend, Gen, who was Lara Jean’s childhood best friend. Things get worse, of course, when another one of the recipients of her love letters, John Ambrose McLaren, suddenly comes back into her life.
Here is our High Five review of To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You.
Lara Jean’s Adorable Outfits
Aside from having a totally cute and sweet boyfriend, another reason you will get jealous of Lara Jean is because of her cute af outfits! From her beautiful red dress for her date with Peter to her oversized sweaters, cute miniskirts and many, many headbands, Lara Jean is a style inspiration for all the girls out there.
Lana Condor and Noah Centineo’s chemistry
There is no denying that Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky make us all swoon every time they’re together on screen and we owe this all to the chemistry between Lana Condor and Noah Centineo. However, the two are just really close friends in real life and you can see that translating onscreen. Fun fact: Lana and Noah actually made a pact to never date each other as they wanted to keep everything professional. Regardless, the pair are just so fun to watch and will make you feel all giddy with their loved up characters. And who else still gushed upon seeing the famous unscripted photo of Lana Condor and Noah Centineo cuddling in between takes on Lara Jean’s phone?
Tapping into the Covey girls’ Korean heritage
In the movie, we see the girls show more of their Korean side – their mom’s side. They dress in a Hanbok, the traditional Korean dress, and dine with their mother’s Korean family in their traditional Korean house. While we never get to meet the Covey sisters’ mother, we know she is a free-spirited and beautiful woman and we can see that she passed some of this down to her girls and it was nice to see them get to connect to her even when she’s not around anymore.
Well-chosen soundtrack
Coming of age films are not complete without a catchy soundtrack. We hear some great tunes as background music throughout the movie – try listening to “Age of Consent” by Cayetana, “Moral of the Story” by Ashe, and “Crashing (feat. Bahari)” by ILLENIUM. But the happy surprise was hearing “Kill This Love” by BLACKPINK, serving as Lara Jean’s “game on” background music in the movie. As Lara Jean is half Korean, it definitely made sense to include a K-pop song in the movie and what better song to do the honors than a BLACKPINK song?
Jung
In the movie, Lara Jean explains the Korean word jung as “the connection between two people that can’t be severed [that] even when love turns to hate you will always have that tenderness in your heart for them.” She uses jung to describe her relationship with her childhood best friend-turned-rival, Gen. In a mature realization, she acknowledges that Peter also has jung with Gen, who he used to date. It was nice that the film highlighted other relationships aside from romantic ones and it was heart-warming to finally see Lara Jean mend her friendship with Gen.
If you need a light and cozy movie to watch on a rainy day, P.S. I Still Love You is the perfect movie for you. However, the movie overall was not as satisfying and I would have loved to have seen more of Stormy and hear her amazing stories that she talks about in the book or even Chris and Trevor’s cute and budding romance. But knowing that there is a third and final film already on its way is definitely getting me excited! There is no definite release date yet but they already began production mid-2019 so we are hoping to get it later this year.
We give this movie 3 out of 5 waves!
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer below: