Review of To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018) by Allan C — 15 Sep 2018

Inconsequential, but highly likable teen rom-com about a girl who's private love letters are made public to all her crushes. She convinces her current crush that the letters doesn't mean a thing and then pretends to go out with an old crush to make her current crush jealous, while her old crush is going out with her to make a friends of her's jealous.

It's an utterly predictable and familiar rom-com plot, but a major distinguishing factor in this version of this familiar story is that instead of a blond haired, blue eyed Alicia Silverstone-type of actress in the lead, there's a cute Asian girl in the lead.

Being Asian myself, I love seeing Asian characters in non-stereotypical roles (Long Duk Dong from "Sixteen Candles is pretty much every Asian character of the 80s and 90s), so seeing a person of color as the romanic lead and going after a non-Asian Jake Ryan type of character is downright novel! My other favorite recent Asian-stereotype busting role was Reggie on the Riverdale TV series, where we get to see an Asian character playing a jock bully, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the nerdy 80s Asian stereotype we primarily see on film and TV.

But I digress. Even if this film had a 1980s Molly Ringwald in the lead, "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" would still have been a highly likable film. It's nothing brilliant, but a cute Asian lead added novelty value to an unpretentiously entertaining film.