The film To All the Boys I Loved Before is a typical teenage rom-com and coming of- age story. In the film, it describes the character Lara Jean Covey, a quirky teen that has a secret. The secret is that all he life she’s been writing love letters to boys she has had crushes on. Not sending them she keeps them in a Tiffany Blue box that her deceased mother gave her. One day while running in gym class she is approached by Peter Kavinsky, her ex-best friend’s boyfriend holding one of Lara Jene’s love letter in hand, someone had sent out her secret love letters. As this all plays out, we see Josh Sanderson, Lara Jean’s sister Margot’s ex-holding one of Lara’s precious letters as well. After this, her whole life is turned upside down. The movie is about a book trilogy, and I feel as if there were some major missing parts from the book to movie adaptation. With this, I am only going to compare the first book to the first movie with the idea in mind that there will be more movies. Overall, I felt as if the movie was genuinely good, but, there was poor character development, and the plot felt rushed and unfinished.
The character development was poor, to say the least, I feel as if Peter Kavinsky’s character’s personality is better compared to a slice of toast, learning nothing about him except for the fact that he and Lara devise a plan to get into a fake relationship, so he can get back with his ex-Genevie. We also know that he is a jock playing for the school lacrosse team. Lara Jene can be described as your quirky, book-loving oddball teen in this movie. She is also Peter Kavinsky’s ‘love’ interest in this movie but only till later. As said Lara and Peter get into this relationship to get back at Peter’s ex Genevieve, and eventually, their fake relationship turns into a real one, and they fall in love. However, there is no type of development for their passion. It feels like one moment it’s fake and then the next they are in love. I know it’s hard to show that kind of love developed in an hour movie, but they could have at least included a montage of them doing things to show their relationship growing stronger like your typical teenage rom-com. Josh Sanderson’s character is pointless in the movie with only a couple of lines, and absolutely nothing else happens with his character development. Lara Jean’s best friend Chris is not in the film very much, what’s a teen rom-com without the leads best friend? The character development is drastically different in the book with some critical points in the book that did not make it to the movie.
Only comparing the first book to the movie the plot differences are quite drastic. The character development is much better in the book, for example, a massive part of Lara Jean’s after-school activities includes volunteering at a nursing home. She is shown as being incredibly creative in the book where I feel as if that was not portrayed as well as it could have been in the movie. Peter is shown to have a big personality in the book and is sarcastic and super charming. Here is the most significant change from book to film Josh was in love with Lara Jean first before he dated her sister and felt as if it was unrequited. So, after he gets the letter, there’s this entire arc of him dealing with having feelings for her and clashing with Peter. He later in the book tells Lara that he has feelings for her and proceeds to kiss her which was not included in the movie. So, when Margot returns from college its more of ‘You kissed my ex-boyfriend.’ rather than ‘You used to have feelings for my ex-boyfriend.’ which is much more exciting and adds a lot more conflict to the storyline. Another drastic change is how Josh feels about his break up with Margot. In the movie, he is saddened by it, but it does not go into depth as it does in the book. In the book, however, he feels as if Margot broke up with him because they just had sex and he thinks she does not want to feel attached.
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The plot holes in this movie got to me the most, also there are so many unresolved fights and lack of consistency in the film. The plot holes are small but are scattered throughout the film, for example, you find out that Genevie dislikes Lara because she kissed Peter while playing spin the bottle when they were around the age of eleven. Genevie had feelings for Peter and felt like Lara who was her friend at the time should not have kissed him. Lara states that Genevie shouldn’t be upset about the kiss that happened because ‘It was spin the bottle and it was tongue-less.’ with Genevie replying ‘Well it was tongue-less to me.’ After that nothing is said about this odd fight and it just leaves the watcher hanging. Another plot hole was in one scene Genevie takes Lara’s favorite hair scrunchie from Peter who was wearing it around his wrist, and he does not even fight to get it back. Later in the movie after the long-awaited ski trip, Genevie shows Lara that she has her favorite hair scrunchie and Lara does nothing to get it back. The final situation that got back to me was small but still bothered me. When Peter and Lara decide to get into this fake relationship they make a list of rules there are six numbered out rules and then written in big letters at the bottom is ‘ski-trip.’ However, when the list is shown later in the movie the way ‘ski-trip’ is written completely differently and when the list is shown for the last time ‘ski-trip’ is written differently, and there are only five rules.
In conclusion, the movie is sweet, and yes, it is kind of cliché with poor character development and plot holes. Overall, it was a good movie. It was a nice break from the typical coming of age stories where everyone looks 27, with great hair, perfect clothing and somewhat of an extensive knowledge of sex despite the fact they are sixteen. Lara Jean reminded me a lot of how I was when I was sixteen; innocent and normal.
