To All the Boys: Always and Forever (2021)

Netflix Movie

Director:

Michael Fimognari

Writers:

Katie Lovejoy

Starring:

Lana Condor

Noah Centineo

Blurb:

Continuing the romantic life of the teenage girl and facing her good and hard times with her friends and family.

Thoughts:

I’m going to do thoughts instead of a review for Always and Forever. For me, there is a difference. I try to be more objective with a review. Not so much with just my thoughts.

Everyone in this movie is beautiful and perfect, inside and out, which was sweet. It’s the end of the trilogy, but it was more like a giant epilogue for the other movies, which was boring.

There is almost no conflict. Nothing new is really introduced, nothing that makes a huge impact at least. I guess you could argue that Peter’s relationship with his dad is new, but that literally takes place in the last twenty or so minutes of the movie. There’s the college selection, but you always knew that was coming. They’re in high school and wealthy. It was assumed they were going to college. The father gets married in the end, but he’d already started dating someone in the last movie, so you knew he’d moved on from Lara Jean’s mother.

If you’re a super-fan of the characters, then Always and Forever was made for you. Which, of course, you’re watching the third movie in a series, naturally you’re going to love the characters. What I’m saying is, there is nothing new here. So if that’s what you’re looking for, then you’re not getting it.

I didn’t expect it to go past high school, but I don’t get the same closure from finishing high school as I’ve gotten older. High school was never a be all end all for me. It was something I had to get through. So, I’m setting expectations.

What is it with the jocks now getting into Ivy League schools? This happened in Always and Forever and The Kissing Booth. While Peter has never seemed more than average intelligence, the Kissing Booth’s dude always came off as a little below average. Yet, there they are in Harvard and Stanford. I guess we’re no longer pretending you get into those schools on merit alone? The bad guys are no longer the ones that buy their way into the schools, it’s now the good guys too?

It’s possible I was in the wrong mood for Always and Forever. I wasn’t in any kind mood at all, so who knows. I love each of the actors in the movie, and I’m looking forward to more from them. I’m just not sure this movie needed to be made.