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*Spoilers ahead*
If you haven’t been keeping up with Netflix’s latest film releases, you may not be aware of the buzz surrounding two Netflix originals released over the past two months. “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “Sierra Burgess is a Loser” are the latest rom-com movies to make headlines – and they are nothing less than fantastic.
These two movies are bringing back 80s style romance with no chance of death for the lovers, but they’re also bringing some important messages that are important to talk about in this time, age and society.
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“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” tells the story of Lara Jean Covey (played by Lana Condor), junior in high school trying to understand her way through life, high school mean girls and boy trouble. She has written letters to boys she’s been interested in, with all her feelings packed inside, and they end up getting delivered to those same guys. When they end up going to one guy in particular (her sister’s boyfriend, Josh), Lara Jean has to act like she’s not interested in him and fakes a relationship with lacrosse player, Peter Kavinsky. Their fake relationship grows, the truth becomes exposed, feelings get hurt and Lara Jean has to figure it all out.
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While Lara Jean’s boy trouble might not be the average (although what does that even mean these days?) kind, it’s still one that so many can relate to. One of the biggest takeaways found in this movie is that you can’t be afraid to jump into something with the mindset that things won’t work out the way you hope. You have to take risks in life and jump right in, otherwise, you will spend your whole life living in fear, and that’s not a great way to live. And who knows, in the end – things might pay off even better than they could have before.
Also, seeing how Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship grows and evolves in the movie shows that you can find commonalities with people that you don’t expect. You can share some great things with people and you can figure stuff out with someone else and figure yourself out at the same time. There’s no guide to how relationships of any kind and love are supposed to work. You can make contracts, but the greatest stories come from the ones that have comfort – no fear.
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“Sierra Burgess is a Loser”
“Sierra Burgess is a Loser” follows the commonality of relationships but takes a modern twist in the end. Sierra Burgess, played by Shannon Purser, is trying to figure her life out as she prepares for her college dreams when she begins an over-the-phone relationship with a guy named Jamey, played by Noah Centineo (he also plays Peter Kavinsky in “To All the Boys”.) The only catch is the Jamey believes she is the popular girl, Veronica. So, Sierra goes with it and gets swept up in her relationship and the lies, leaving the fairytale to become a cat-fishing craze.
There’s been a lot of controversy following the release of this movie because of the ending. While it’s possible to see why some are upset with it, the movie itself is still great, nonetheless. Sierra was a confident badass who didn’t care what anybody else said or thought about her. It wasn’t until she had feelings for a guy who thought she was someone else that her insecurities showed.
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Society always has this funny way of trying to tell us who belongs with who, what we need to look like and how things are supposed to go, but one of the greatest things that this movie shows is that you don’t have to fit society’s mold and you can still have the same things as everyone else. Much like “To All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved,” Sierra proves that what you see isn’t always what you get and that there’s always more than meets the eye. When you peel back those layers that society gives us, those walls that get built up, you can find some really beautiful things.