To All The Movies I Haven't Loved Before- Be Reel Blog

          The movie "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" is a novel written by Jenny Han and has recently been turned into a Netflix movie. This movie has been highly acclaimed by teenage girls everywhere and I (being the target audience) fully went in expecting to enjoy the movie but that simply was not the case. "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" is a Netflix romcom so of course it has the privilege of being a very polished and pretty looking movie. The actors are beautiful and the acting is very good and the movie is shot in a very sharp appealing way, although the plot, characters and content is what ruins this movie. This movie although not as terrible as "Sierra Burgess is a Loser" suffers from a lot of the same issues as that Netflix movie and not so surprisingly they both feature the same lead roll 'Noah Centineo" as the love interest. Both these movies consist of a very weird confusing plot that features the female roll (Lara Jean in this case) being completely obsessed with the pretty boy (Peter in this case). Lara writes letters to all the boys shes ever been in love with and one day her sister sends them all out causing Peter to ask Lara to fake date him order to get his ex girlfriend jealous. Laura does not want her older sister to find out she is in a fake relationship, Laura has an awkward relationship with her sister's ex boyfriend and her ex best friend and it is painfully obvious that both Peter and Lara like each other despite their relationship being fake and Peter basically using Lara to get back with his ex girlfriend. That is all you have to know about the movie every scene is something to feed into one of those plot points until the big climatic scene where Peter shows up at Lara's door and Lara must come clean to her sister and everyone else about her relationship and of course Lara and Peter end up together in the end. The plot is just so meaningless and each scene almost seems like filler, that really makes the film hard to watch. On top of that Lara is such a pathetic character that makes you want to yell at the screen the entire time. She is so obsessed with Peter she is completely okay with being used by him so he can get back with his ex and for majority of the movie is left guessing over Peter's true emotions. Meanwhile Peter is leading on Lara Jean the whole movie except for the moments he is obsessing over his ex. The whole movie is confusing for its own sake constantly making you question "if they both like each other why don't they just date?" but then you remember its a Netflix romcom that wants to put Noah Centineo's face on your screen for as long as they possibly can.
               It has been a long time since I watched a movie that actually made me angry, this is one of those movies. The plot was so distasteful especially to a girl who has been used by boys before. The obvious manipulation that Peter using throughout the film makes you question why he is still seen as the perfect dream boy the whole movie. He leads Lara on and also gets with his ex and tries to win her back and when Lara gets mad he claims "were not really dating it's a fake relationship".  Netflix has created a new genre called "Noah Centineo-syndrome" where pathetic main roll girls (who also are losers with no friends) obsess over Noah Centineo for a whole movie's worth of time while a couple of good tracks play and plenty of Noah shirtless scenes ensue. Although having an attractive lead roll does not make a movie and although "To All The Boys Iv'e Loved Before" was a novel it the plot was still garbage and throwing Noah into it did not make it any better. A lead character who is a pathetic boy obsessed loser may work if the plot and story telling was done right but in this case (and "Sierra Burgess is a Loser") the main character learned nothing by the end of the story. They chased around the hot pretty boy learned nothing about self worth or themselves and in the end predictably ended up with the boy. There was no character growth in this story Lara Jean stayed a boy obsessed loser who threw away her self worth to fake date the boy of her dreams who constantly used her and Peter stayed the same popular boy jockhead he was the whole tine. I believe this movie is best for people who want to look at a pretty screen filled with pretty shots and pretty actors but for someone who wants content with actual purpose and not a thick coat of polish over a big hunk of trash look elsewhere because I can assure you Netflix definitely has better romcoms to offer than this. In result I think "To All The Boys Iv'e Loved Before" deserves its 'BAD BAD' rating.