It’s that time of the month again; Netflix review time!! Ever since my last Netflix review on Extinction, I’ve made it a personal mission to watch as many Netflix films and television shows as possible. I have been through so many! Ones that everyone has watched (Stranger Things, the Kissing Booth, etc) and ones not many people have heard off (When we first meet, Reality High, etc). Overall the quality of the content has been pretty consistent. I have some personal favourites though. One of those favourites is “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” which is our Netflix review for this month.
“To All the Boy I’ve Loved Before” is a story surrounding Lara Jean, a high school student. She is very shy, has few friends and prefers to stay in with the family on weekends while the rest of her high school year date each other and party. Lara Jean has had many crushes while growing up and as she didnt want to act on them she wrote each one a love letter instead. She kept her love letters in a secret box which no one ever knew about. One day, somehow, the letters were all sent out. Those crushes, who she is still in high school with, receive their love letters and she has no idea how to deal with it.
This was advertised as a typical girly “romcom” however it turned out to be way more than that. It was funny, hilarious even. It had great witty moments not only with the main character but with all the characters. The witty moments didn’t feel staged or rehearsed in anyway and this made the film feel so realistic. It was as if we were watching a documentary even. The characters were so natural and they made the events of the storyline feel so natural as well as making the story more believable.
However the film also seemed realistic because of the style of the film as well. It was beautifully filmed and edited together. For me it reminded me of the style from Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel”. Those wide angled documentary framed shots that appear every so often throughout this film gave it a feel of some personal insight to the lives of this camera. Made it feel more like a documentary of sorts and that we had a special window to look through and watch.
Overall, my favourite thing about this film is the main character and her family. More so, I should say, the ethnicity of the main character and her family. Lara Jean was written as an American-Asian character. They wanted a mixed cultured main character and that meant that most of her family was also american asian as well. I found this incredibly refreshing to see. So many leading men and women in big blockbuster films are ‘white’ characters. I can not tell you how refreshing it is to see a main character who is so obviously from an Asian background. I even watched an interview by Lana Condor, who plays Lara Jean; she said that she has always dreamt of being a lead in a romcom but of course had never seen anyone that looks like her as the main character before. She was so happy when Netflix wanted to cast an American-Asian as the lead in the film. I think it’s really cool and I think we need to push the boundaries like this in the future. We can not change the hate in the world without taking leaps like this.
If you’re looking for a funny romcom with a bit of an edge to it, then this is definitely a must watch for you. It’s light-hearted, humorous and just a plain good old happy film to watch. Even my dad found it funny!! As far as the quality of what Netflix is producing, I’m still very happy and will continue my subscription if they continue to produce good quality content like this film.
Definitely an 8 out of 10!
Mean Productions 