To All The Boys PS I Still Love You Review: Oversimplified teenage drama with fairytale ending

Netflix’s To All The Boys: PS I Still Love You, a sequel to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018), brings back Noah Centineo and Lana Condor, along with a cute teenage love story.

Netflix’s To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You starts off where To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before left it in 2018. Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) and Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) are now dating – yes, it’s official. And life is (seemingly) great. But it takes little to mess it up, too much, too quickly.

A little recap: Lara Jean wrote five letters to the five boys she loved. One of them was Peter, of course, who she is with RN. While all of the other letters were answered, one of those, addressed to John Ambrose, remained unanswered. Until the scope of this film. Enter John Ambrose into Lara Jean’s life, and hello mess.

Like every other teenage drama, To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You also takes the typical course. Things are great until a conflict is introduced that consume the lead characters, leaving them distressed and dejected with life, but everything resolves just as easily as they got complicated by the end. Since maturity is not something one looks for in a teenage romance, let’s dive into the plot.

To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You touches upon two interesting things – the ‘what if’ and the ‘jeong’ (we’ll get to this one in a bit). The ‘what if’ is simple to understand. It’s that feeling you get when you meet someone while you’re in a relationship and wonder if things would be different if you were with them. It actually happens more often than you’d admit (c’mon, come clean now) and isn’t only a teenage crisis. Except, To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You’s PG 13 scope only addresses it that much, doesn’t delve deeper into the problem, and thereby leaves a lot out of the purview of the film. But a prerequisite of watching a teenage romance is leaving the cynic in you outside the door. And we’re doing that.

The ‘jeong’ is more interesting, actually. Jeong is a Korean concept and it loosely translates to a feeling of affection one may feel for another person, place or thing. Jeong, according to the film, is a unique bond that connects two people even after the love between them is dead. Towards the climax of the film, Lara Jean realises that she feels this about Gen (Emilija Baranac), her once-upon-a-time friend she’d buried friendship bracelets for in a time capsule in sixth grade, who now looms large over her as Peter’s ex-girlfriend. Of all the ways a mean girl vs a good girl relationship has been explored in teenage flicks, this stands out for us.

In terms of performances, both Noah Centineo and Lana Condor do a fair job. But for the amount of screen time Lana gets, she fails to capture one’s attention. Noah, on the other hand, has far fewer scenes, and by virtue of that manages to tightly grab your attention. Lara’s character has a defined curve that Peter lacks in this instalment. Peter has no internal conflict, he loves her, and he knows it. Lara has to rise above her own insecurities and learn to trust, while fighting the temptation of ‘what ifs’ like John Ambrose.

The side plots will keep you hooked. Lucas (Trezzo Mahoro) calling Lara lucky because she has choice as opposed to him who is a “gay dude with only two other gay dudes in the school” hits you. Dr Covey (John Corbett) finally moving on with his life after the death of his wife, Lara’s mother, is heart-warming. While Trevor (Ross Butler, of 13 Reasons Why fame) and Christine’s (Madeleine Arthur) budding romance is a perfect example of how opposites attract – just like Peter and Lara Jean.

So does Lara Jean pick Peter or John Ambrose? Let’s just say that the climax is every bit the fairytale you were expecting when you started streaming this one (and not say Narcos Mexico)