To All The Boys, Always & Forever(Netflix)
Starring Lana Condor and Noah Centineo
Directed by Michael Fimognari
Rating: **
Hell, if you enjoyed the first two films in the To All The Boys trilogy then this one is as desirable a closure as you can get .
So to all the boys and girls who are curious to know how Lara Jean and Peter’s ongoing romance pans out , here is a clue. They are together at the end of the trilogy . But we don’t really know what’s in store for them in the future, as Lara Jean will be going to New York University while Peter goes to Berkley which is quite a distance.
A large part of the film is about managing a long-distance relationship over a lengthy period of time. The tidal dips and curves that make a love relationship interesting to the outsiders, in this case us, are blissfully circumvented. As things stand we sit in our seats half-bemused half-bored by Lara Jean and Peter’s she-loves-me-he-loves-me-not prattle .
The second sequel sorely lacks pace. It takes some fluent jumps towards something virile and then falls back into the limp mode, exhausted by the sheer mundanenes of the goings-on.
Still, I say the ta-ta segment of the treacly trilogy may be of some interest to the the younger audiences, though my daughter found the romance “silly and impractical”. However the very real chemistry between the two lead players can’t be denied. Also, the fact that the pair doesn’t go all the way until the very end, is a sweet concession to oldworld values. At one point, Lara Jean tells Peter that she can easily take him up to her bedroom. But her father’s disappointed face will follow them.
Speaking of Lara Jean’s Dad(John Corbett), he marries his affable neighbour Trina(Sarayu Blue) and some parts of the narrative get into the wedding mood with clothes, food, colours and themes for the wedding being excitedly discussed.This again, is relatively a cop-out for the lack of an anchoring drama .
All said and shown, there is no real drama in the plot, no big revelations, no shocking twists. This last film in the trilogy is more about cruising lazily down the same route rather than diverting into an adventurous lane.
When Lara Jean asks her bratty kid sister Kitty(Anna Cathcart) how much she would miss her Didi on a scale of 1 to 10 when she leaves home for university, Kitty says 4.
Lara Jean protests that Kitty had given a far more generous rating to how much she would miss their eldest sister Margot when she left home.
“That’s because I was younger and far less mature then,” Kitty replies.
Even the diehard fans of this series have grown up now and would find it hard to give this trilogy-ender more than 4 out of 10.