Warning: Spoilers

For all of the couples—and or single people—wanting to watch rom-coms while stuffing their faces with chocolate this month, you should definitely watch To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, the much-anticipated sequel to, To all the Boys I Loved Before. This movie is about a teenage girl experiencing her first relationship, but is conflicted by another love interest who also received one of her five love letters. 

While the first movie was a cute, unique high school love story between two teens, Lara Jean and Peter Kavinski, what made the sequel so interesting was that it shows that not all relationships are ‘happily ever after.’ It takes a lot of emotions, communication, and trust for relationships to work. The movie also reveals the chaotic problems that are often caused by assumptions and overthinking. One side assumes that their significant other is cheating, or they overthink that someone else would make them happier than them, the list goes on and on. Psychologically, the movie did a great performance reflecting on how much effort a committed relationship needs, it’s not just fancy dinners and sunshine all the time—there will be arguments and frustration. 

I watched the trailer before the movie was released, and the trailer caused the plot to be very predictable, along with the film’s overly telling movie title. The trailer introduced a new ‘love interest’ for Lara Jean, which caused some tension between her and Peter Kavinski. The trailer spoiled a lot of the actual movie, and made it seem like I watched the entire movie in that three minute video. It made the entire movie predictable, which gave it a very cheesy vibe.

The movie was overall charming and heartfelt for a high school rom-com, but it wasn’t as fresh or fun as the first one. The first movie revealed more of a unique situation and hooked the viewers more with dramatic confliction, while the second movie was more hilariously predictable and boring. The first movie was unique with the five love letters and conflict with Lara Jean’s ex-boyfriend receiving a love letter, and the quiet shy girl ending up with the popular lacrosse guy; however, the second movie was repetitive on another ‘love interest’ receiving a love letter. Even though it did well expressing the psychological aspect of how difficult relationships can get, it would have been more interesting if the plot was twisted, and she ended up with the new guy rather than staying with Peter Kavinski. The movie wasn’t as good as I expected it to be, which made me dislike it, because a lot of people have been waiting for this movie to come out. I was very disappointed with the way it turned out. It still had the charm, but was nowhere near as good as the first movie.

Overall I liked that they continued the series, but the second movie also seemed very rushed, so the plot wasn’t as good as the first movie. There were awkward pauses and a lot more narrative in the second movie than the first movie, which made me think that the actors didn’t understand what to do in some scenes. It was okay for a sequel, but the plot was too predictable and could have been more interesting.