Love letters a
girl wrote for herself to all the boys she's had a crush on in her life find
their way to all those boys by mistake.
I have trouble telling when something on Netflix is a genuine phenomenon and when it's just popular in my corner of the internet. The fact that no one knows Netflix's viewership numbers* means I'm not alone in this. I know Stranger Things and 13 Reasons Why were huge. Wild Wild Country and The End of the Fucking World were more popular among critics than the general public. Set It Up was apparently a smash hit even though everyone who describes it as a hit does so with a hint of doubt. From what I've gathered, To All The Boys I've Loved Before is a big hit with the teens and maybe more. Netflix quietly and strategically released it at the same time as Crazy Rich Asians, so people getting home from the theater would turn on Netflix and see there's another RomCom with an Asian American lead waiting for them. Savvy move, Netflix.
*And even if we had the numbers, we wouldn't have context for them anyway.
I'm a sucker for RomComs and teen coming-of-age stories, so it was easy to convince me to watch this.
The strangest thing about the movie is the tone it sets at the beginning. The first 10 minutes felt like I was watching episode 6 of the first season of some teen-centric Nickelodeon show. There's a weirdly familiar tone to it all. I can't think of another movie like it in that way. I actually checked to make sure I didn't miss the first few minutes of the movie. I didn't dislike it. I just didn't know what to make of it.
The story plays out much differently than I expected too. The pitch of the movie really isn't the plot. It reminded me of a Simpsons episode in that way. Episodes of that often start as being about one thing then change into the actual A-story after a couple minutes. To All the Boys starts with the letters accidentally getting mailed to the boys. When that happened, I prepared for a lot of wild antics and farce: lies built on top of lies. Maybe even something where she has two dates going on at the same time in different places or something (Classic Flintstones). The stuff with the letters never entirely goes away, but those are really just an excuse to get into a story about a fake relationship that becomes a real relationship. That's also a familiar story, but a different one than I was sold going in. Seriously, this movie is packed with odd decisions, and I mostly liked it for them.
The reason I was able to like it no matter what weird turns it took was because Lana Condor is a delightful lead. She's part of a long tradition of attractive girls who don't realize how attractive they are; the girl who acts shy and mousy enough to offset her obvious "leading lady" charisma. Nothing about the movie is new. It's all formula, even if the exact configuration is a little different. I also want to throw some love to John Corbett. He's quietly great in this. I don't think he gets more than 10 words in any scene, but he makes them all count. He knows it's a bit part but he tries anyway.
This movie was a welcome distraction. It won't top any lists I ever make, but it was a nice way to spend 90 minutes.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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