Jillian Bradford
Class: Senior
Major: Communications and Writing
Hometown: Tyler, TX
This Valentine’s Day, I hope you found yourself at a romantic dinner with the love of your life, but if yours was anything like mine, then it may have included a night in watching rom-coms with buckets of popcorn and tissues right next to you. The rom com that caught the attention of many people last year, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, came out with their sequel movie, and it did not disappoint.
Since the first one was widely popular and gained so much attention, I knew that the second was bound to be pretty great. However with the first one having such a “and they lived happily ever after” ending, I questioned how they were going to keep our attention. They did a great job of adding new characters, new adventures, and new twists!
Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Our beloved Lara Jean finds herself as someone’s girlfriend for the first time ever. Peter Kavinsky, on the other hand, has been through this before as we saw in the first movie when Lara Jean pretended to be his girlfriend to make his ex, Gen, jealous. Peter had a serious relationship with Lara Jean’s ex-best friend Gen, and it wasn’t exactly the best relationship. Throughout the movie, the thought of Peter and Gen’s relationship haunts Lara Jean, and she can’t shake the thought that maybe Peter isn’t cherishing all of their first moments like she is because he’s already “had these moments with someone else before.” One day when Lara Jeans gets home, she sees that she has mail from a certain person. It happens to be one of the five boys that she sent love letters to, and his name is John Ambrose. They begin to start volunteering at the same nursing home, and they form a friendship that could potentially blossom into something more. They have arguably a lot more in common than Lara Jean and Peter have in common. This becomes one of the central themes of the movie: Is it better to like someone who is more like you, or is it just easier?
Lara Jean is a really great role model, but she’s also relatable and imperfect which must be one of the reasons that everyone fell in love with this series. She’s independent, and she knows what she wants. The movie goes through a lot of realistic aspects even though it has more a fantastical approach to love. We see this when she puts her relationship with Peter in question, and for most fans, this is not what we wanted to see at first. Then, one can see why Lara Jean questions it and herself; she has a good head on her shoulders. Her smart and mature actions and reactions give good examples for young girls to handle their emotions and insecurities. It also speaks to a broader audience to look past someone’s outer appearance and/or reputation in life, relationships, and everything in between. If you get to know someone’s heart, then you could form a great relationship with people you had never thought you could! That’s what makes Peter and Lara Jean’s relationship so unique- it was unexpected, but it works.
This movie did a great job of transitioning and bringing in more characters. Each one is unique and diverse. John Ambrose, a friend and crush from Model UN, has a lot of character traits that Peter doesn’t possess and makes for a good foil. Both characters are good examples of men in relationships that do not present toxic masculinity. There are a lot of really good lessons and feel-good moments that come from this series, and I’m excited to see where they go next in the adventures. They were just told that there will be a 3rd movie coming out, so be on the lookout for that in the future!