My hatred for actor Noah Centineo may be astronomical, but I think we need to talk about the new “To All the Boys” movie. I have officially seen all of these movies, and they’re stuck in a sort of gray area between good or a bad. The stories and tropes are certainly basic to say the least, and the male protagonist is so infuriating at times, but they can still be enjoyable movies. 

The third movie centers around main character Lara-Jean (LJ for short) and her senior year of high school. LJ battles with the thought that she may have to leave her high school boyfriend in order to pursue her own dreams — and though I may only be a sophomore right now and my knowledge is solely based on movies, this seems like a fairly common, realistic conflict.

LJ and her boyfriend Peter plan on getting into the same college and essentially spending the rest of their lives together, but LJ doesn’t make it in. While this might make for a good rom-com plot, it just doesn’t feel realistic. LJ and Peter break up on their prom night because of their conflicting feelings, and I personally think that the relationship should have been left there. 

Through the entire trilogy LJ and Peter seem stuck in this loop of on and off. Lara-Jean thinks Peter did something bad, they break up for a week, Peter says he’s so very sorry, and suddenly they’re back to square one. This is a movie and I get that they need to have some kind of action to keep it interesting, but it seems like a bad example to be setting for the kids who watch these movies. When they break up in the third film, I was infuriated and quite literally yelling at my screen about how bad of a boyfriend Peter is. 

Aside from the clearly poor relationship examples shown in this movie, it’s not that bad. The color pallet is pretty nice, which is something I always pay close attention to because bad colors make a movie hard to watch. The subplots are pretty cute too. There is one specific subplot with LJ’s dad and his new wife, which I liked more than the main plot of the movie. It would definitely have been better if Lara-Jean and Peter stayed apart at the end, but overall it’s a sweet film.

All in all, if you need a good reason to yell at Centineo and his bad-slam-poetry-esque delivery of every single line, then definitely watch “To All The Boys: Always and Forever.” Otherwise I’d say maybe avoid this one if you want to keep your sanity.