2018's To All the Boys I Loved Before felt like a fresh new rom-com for a younger generation. The cast was diverse, the attitudes were modernistic, but at that place was clear kinship with 80s romantic comedies. The moving picture played similar an development of the genre for teens that are discovering rom-coms on Netflix, and Netflix got a popular rom-com to call its own. Now we've got the sequel To All the Boys: P.S. I Yet Love You , which tries to dive into what happens later on "happily ever afterward." The problem is that grayness space is kind of antithetical to the rom-com formula that made the original pop. While the lead actors are withal charming and the visuals are nevertheless bright and colorful, the narrative moves in a more serious management of a couple trying to piece of work past their insecurities while the protagonist flirts with the possibility of a new love. There's still enough magic to make the sequel piece of work, but P.Due south. I Still Love Youfeels like a thing of diminishing returns.

Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and Peter (Noah Centineo) are get-go their human relationship as our story begins, but their "happily ever after" is speedily upended by two new threats. The outset is that Lara Jean, who has never had a boyfriend before, becomes worried that every move Peter is making with her is one he fabricated with his quondam girlfriend, Gen (Emilija Baranac), and then that while everything is new to Lara Jean, it'south non especially special to Peter. Lara Jean'due south globe is rocked farther when her middle-schoolhouse trounce, John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher), who too received one of her letters, comes back into her life when he coincidentally volunteers at the aforementioned nursing home. Lara Jean must decide if she wants to work things out with Peter or pursue a new relationship with the charming and dreamy John Ambrose.

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Image via Netflix

The best aspect of P.Due south. I Notwithstanding Love You lot is how information technology retains the original's infatuation with relationships. Watching both movies is like hopping in a time machine and going dorsum to when the most of import thing in the globe was who liked you and being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend. The earnestness and charm of these movies is how it makes you invested in what these characters experience even if you've long left their cares behind. With its bright, colorful palette and confident visuals, To All the Boys and its sequel tin instantly transport you into a lovely rom-com that doesn't feel similar a retread of the genre.

Where I Nonetheless Love You falters is that it doesn't accept the tight, easy stakes of the original, and while that'due south by design, the sequel doesn't quite take an identity of its own. The beginning film is pretty simple ready-upward and pay-off: Lara Jean and Peter pretend to be in a relationship to brand other people jealous but to fall for each other. I Still Dear You wants to have it both ways where y'all meet a burgeoning, dreamy human relationship betwixt John Ambrose, and also the difficult reality of being an insecure high schooler in your starting time romantic human relationship. On paper, I can appreciate what I Still Love Y'all is trying to do by showing the evolution of Lara Jean by dreamy rom-com beginnings into something more mature and difficult. The trouble is in the execution that tin can't quite make everything cohere together.

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Image via Netflix

Part of the problem is with the split narrative, and while it does offer Lara Jean ii paths forward, there's never much uncertainty of which direction she'due south going to get. Also, like To All the Boys, the sequel suffers from the issue of making anyone who'southward not Lara Jean or Peter rendered flat with only the occasional lip service to how they might accept interior lives across our central romance. Granted, the rom-com isn't known for rich, deep supporting characters, but a lot of rom-coms don't get sequels, so there should be at least some fourth dimension fleshing people out, peculiarly someone like John Ambrose who'south supposed to rival Peter.

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You is still a nice rom-com for the Netflix crowd that wants to chill out with a sweet picture with mannerly pb actors, and I practice appreciate that it's trying to practice something slightly unlike rather than just replicate the formula of the original. But while To All the Boys I've Loved Earlier tin can hands stand as a rom-com staple on Netflix, P.S. I Still Dearest Y'all is more of a curiosity that you'll probably lookout man in one case before pressing play again on the first movie.

Rating: B-

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Matt Goldberg (15131 Articles Published)

Matt Goldberg has been an editor with Collider since 2007. Every bit the site'south Chief Picture Critic, he has authored hundreds of reviews and covered major motion-picture show festivals including the Toronto International Movie Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. He resides in Atlanta with his wife and their domestic dog Jack.

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