COMING OF AGE THROUGH LARA JEAN: TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE

By Prerna Chaudhary (Advertising, Marketing and Communications, ‘22)

It was a typical Friday night after school when I was at my friend’s house deciding what teen rom-com to watch. Nickelodeon reruns we were too old for blared in the background when we landed on “The Breakfast Club” – because what could epitomize the American teen experience better than that? John Hughes movies have inspired decades of films, so they certainly have their place in our mental pop culture libraries. But I couldn’t get on board with the characters or their dialogues; they weren’t realistic, relatable or at the very least interesting to me. I didn’t find it funny or entertaining. This is supposed to be iconic? Maybe it was the fact that these movies took place over thirty years ago. Maybe it’s that there was hardly any diversity in the characters. Maybe it’s that the jokes relied on stereotypes, but regardless, this movie was underwhelming.

It was the summer after I finished high school that I watched “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.” Although the movie looks and at times feels like a John Hughes movie, the main character, Lara Jean, is distinctly from her own time and place. After watching it once by myself, preventing any chance of distraction from the movie, I rewatched it the next night, telling my friend “You HAVE to watch this.” I knew after watching this movie just once, how quintessential it would become in my own coming of age American experience.

The movie resonated so strongly with me because of Lara Jean’s unapologetic authenticity and the movies’ intentional and cohesive embodiment of her.

Jenny Han published the first novel in the “To All the Boys” trilogy in 2014. This book was on the New York Times Bestselling list in the Young Adult fiction section for 40 weeks. It was the first children’s book on the list to ever have an Asian American girl on the cover Han pointed out on the Asian Boss Girl podcast. When she was looking for production companies to buy the rights to her series, many lost interest after she refused to change Lara Jean’s race for the movie adaptation. Keeping the character true to the source material was a win for the films and Asian Americans.

Lara Jean as a Character

It’s powerful to see a young woman of color on screen being portrayed in an authentic way where she is unapologetically herself. So often people on social media and in films embody the “I’m not like other girls” trope, so seeing Lara Jean being happy to embrace her femininity was a breath of fresh air. She uses her love for baking, a stereotypically feminine hobby, as a stress coping mechanism, despite other characters making jabs at her for it. She doesn’t hide her love for cheesy romance novels. She casually references romantic comedy movie scenes because there’s no embarrassment to be had for enjoying them. She’s open to exposing her vulnerable hopeless romantic side, even with her initially fake boyfriend, Peter.

Stemming from the “I’m not like other girls” problem of putting down supposedly feminine qualities and emotions, I have seen myself and others hiding behind irony. Expressing every verbal thought and emotion with a layer of irony in front prevents people from knowing whether you are being serious or not. This irony could be used as a way to critique others for doing something “basic” while doing the same thing because it’s alluding to this superior awareness you have. Despite having the same basic interest, in rom-coms let’s say, a person hiding behind irony could say they only watch this genre to make fun of the films, not because they secretly love the outdated stories and live vicariously through the ideal characters.

Lara Jean is a stark contrast to the facade of wokeness that is often presented when people hide behind irony. She isn’t hiding herself. She just is. Although she may come off as a shy bookworm, she’s actually confident in herself and her capabilities. Lara Jean just chooses who she opens this side of herself up to. In the final installment of the series, “To All The Boys: Always and Forever,” Lara Jean’s boyfriend, Peter, said that he couldn’t fathom why she didn’t get into the same college as him because she was way smarter than him. Without flinching, Lara Jean agreed at first. She knows her own worth. She was quick to break up with Peter when she felt she wasn’t his first choice in the second film. She called out her friend Josh for calling her an “innocent sweet girl” for not seeing her complexity in the first film. She was more than just that. Lara Jean was realistic, relatable and interesting, all lacking in John Hughes’ teen characters. Sure, her problem of accidentally mailing out handwritten love letters is certainly unrealistic, but her personality isn’t.

The Portrayal of Lara Jean

Author Jenny Han crafted Lara Jean’s persona, but the films executed on her portrayal very well because of their intentionality and cohesiveness. Lana Candor’s embodiment of Lara Jean was highly believable, and the casting couldn’t have been better. One of Lara Jean’s defining characteristics is that she is always imagining scenarios, often romantic, in her head. So, it is appropriate that the film is boldly from her perspective and no other characters. We only see her side of the story, but the movie wasn’t trying to be balanced in any way. For example, in the second movie, Peter gifts Lara Jean a necklace. When he puts it on her, we only see her giddy face while his face is blurred in the background. Later, they break up and he takes the necklace off of her, again highlighting her despair, but not his in the matching shot.

We can see Lara Jean being unafraid to tune into her emotions in the second film, again, after she breaks up with Peter. While many of us have sat in the car belting our emotions out to a Top 40 pop song, the film took this sentiment to another level. Ashe’s “Moral of the Story'' is playing as the backdrop of the scene. When Lara Jean goes to school that day, noticeably in a darker color palette than the rest of the candied look of the film, she stands in the middle of the hallway breaking the fourth wall and lip singing the lyrics of the breakup bop. Popularized by Spike Lee, the scene uses the double dolly shot to make Lara Jean seem even more detached from her surroundings. Lara Jean’s in the center of the frame, moving forward with the camera while her surroundings move past her. She’s so in her head that she’s starring in her own break up music video in the middle of a school hallway, and that’s the point. She’s being her hopeless romantic dramatic self. The third film paid tribute to Lara Jean’s dreamy fantasies with another montage with Sandflower’s acoustic melancholy cover of the Spice Girls’ Wannabe, only one of the many replayable tunes on the soundtrack.

Similar to the appeal of Lara Jean’s lack of pretense and openness to vulnerability, I appreciated that this film wasn’t trying to force nuance; the filmmakers wanted the audience to understand the symbolism in the first watch. While the film uses unconventional shots, it was able to create obvious visual cues for mood shifts. When Lara Jean sees Peter approaching her with her love letter of the first film, there’s a POV shot where the camera zooms into the letter in Peter’s hand in a dizzying fashion, foreshadowing Lara Jean’s lightheadedness and fainting from discomfort. There are also visual cues, such as physical banners, to indicate the distinct acts of the films: “Heartbreak,” “Valentine’s Day,” and “Senior Class Trip.” Again, these acts are broken up by centering what is most important to Lara Jean at the moment.

Where the Series Fell Short

While I am evidently a fan of Lara Jean as a character, I have some concerns about the series. My first issue is with a scene from the first movie where Peter and Lara Jean’s relationship began. To avoid confronting Josh, Lara Jean grabbed Peter and kissed him without consent. If the gender roles were reversed, the problem with this act would be even more clear.

There is also some controversy around casting non-Koreans in a Korean American role. Jennifer Poon (AMC, ‘22) pointed out that this “could indicate lazy, ineffective casting when it comes to Asian people,” further perpetuating the idea that all Asians look the same. Furthermore, the fact that Lara Jean’s Korean mother passed away adds layers of context to the story, but that leaves only her white father to fill the parent role. While this may not seem problematic, Poon brought up that it could send the message that “Asian girls must be permanently tied to whiteness in order to be represented in a dignified manner in Western [media].” One way the movies could’ve prevented this is to show flashbacks with dialogue of the mom to reinforce her importance in Lara Jean’s life.

It All Started with a Letter

Despite the series’ shortcomings, The “To All The Boys” series became a cornerstone in my own coming of age story. It’s almost ironic how strongly I resonated with Lara Jean because she makes references to films that I do not know or care for. Despite this, her story helped me understand what viewers must’ve felt when they watched “The Breakfast Club”. As a teen movie enthusiast, I can say that this movie series elevated the entire category’s value. The movies have caused a stir that has resulted in a varied audience. Even though you can catch the metaphors in the first watch, you’ll voluntarily rewatch it and cheer for team Lara Jean the second, third, and even tenth time around.

Yours truly, Prerna *puts letter in teal hat box*