No, she is not a shy girl with spectacles that suddenly finds her true love to remove the spectacles and notice she is beautiful. No, he is not a mindless cruel jock with the only purpose in life to show girls what not to date. No, he is not the good friend who in the end gets the girl because that's who she really loved. The characters in this film feel real and act like real people. It is so painfully obvious that the movie is based on a book: few original scripts for romantic movies ever pay attention to the people in the story and care about making the story original and relatable at the same time.

Bottom line: for a romantic movie it was great. I loved and understood the characters (all except the little sister who should have died in any kind universe),even the "villains". I loved that there were no real villains, only people with goals and hopes and desires. I liked the actors, the acting and the direction. The movie is based on the first book in a trilogy by Jenny Han. I am not sure the other books are as good or if the story even needs a continuation. I thought it was perfect the way it was. Is it a romantic young adult novel adaptation? Yes it is. Is it stupid and formulaic? Definitely not! To me it is one of few movies about love and romance that don't retell the same cardboard story with the same cardboard characters. It is an art to find the perfect spot between relatability and realism. I think this film found it.

Lara Jean Song Covey is a shy Korean-American teen girl. She is obsessed with romance novels and has written five love letters to her various crushes over the years. She keeps them secret in her late mother's box. It's a secret until her younger sister Kitty mails them out to force her out of her box. Three of the letters go out to classmates Peter Kavinsky, Josh Sanderson, and Lucas James. Lucas is gay. Her long-time neighbor friend Josh has been dating her older sister Margot until Margot breaks up with him before leaving for college in Scotland. Peter is the jock boyfriend of Jen, Lara Jean's former best friend. Jen still holds a grudge against her for a spin-the-bottle kiss with Peter when they were much younger. After Jen dumps Peter, Peter has the idea to have a fake relationship with Lara Jean.

This is super duper cute. It is squeaky clean teen rom-com aimed more towards the female audience. Despite that, there are little things that surprised me from this formula movie. The stolen letters routine is nothing new but it is so sincere and sweet that it feels fresh. I give full marks for the casting of Lana Condor. Besides not whitewashing, Lana has both the super cuteness needed as well as a shy every girl that fits this role. She looks like a teen and can transform along with the film. Peter is the big surprise of the movie. I expected the love triangle to go a different way so when Peter's lines started hitting, I was pleasantly surprised at really liking this character. If there are drawbacks, they are minor and understandable. This is a smaller production and I suspect that it was intended more as a tween TV movie. There are limitations to every aspects. For example, the kids go on a skiing trip but there are no skiing scenes. A bigger movie would have a funny physical section about her failing at skiing. Also the confrontation is low stakes but higher stakes would require something more mature. These are all understandable drawbacks. At its heart, this is a lovely, cute, and sweet take on the teen rom-com formula.

Hey, sometimes I am in the room and my wife puts on a movie and I am just compelled to not leave due to laziness... But then it turns out to not be too bad a thing thats on! I ponder and will assume Netflix did this to whet any appetites of those having just seen Crazy Rich Asians (which Netflix originally bid on to produce) and wanting more Asian-led rom coms.

More than that, it's shot with what look like (to get oddly technical) good prime lenses so that it doesnt have that sort of cheap look that TV or even other direct-to-Netflix movies have sometimes. I feel bad this didnt get a chance to be seen in theaters, but on the other hand this may get seen by a lot more people than if it were only in theaters a couple of weeks and then brushed to DVD.

This doesnt mean it is without some of the conventions of the genre (I guess they try to get around the "Gay Best Friend" by not making him exactly a "best" one - also, a token, which we haven't seeb un a while I guess). It also has the most non-"ill kill you!"-reveal reveal in a long time. But the main characters have great chemistry and it doesn't feel forced for a moment - or, at the least, I like seeing these two figuring things out as young people sort of stumbling into romance.

And Lana Condor having a star-making turn here aside (she's pretty, but her acting is subtle enough to make this premise not seem too ridiculous),there's a guy here, the other male lead who I forget his name now, who seems to be the high school clone (in voice especially) of Mark Ruffalo.