To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

and the Letters No One Was Meant to Read

A teen romance of the smartphone era: private letters mailed, a fake relationship with written rules, and a private video posted to make her doubt. What it teaches about where the shame lands, being used to make someone jealous, jealousy made public, consent said out loud, and sisters who help.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018). Directed by Susan Johnson, written by Sofia Alvarez from Jenny Han’s novel. Lana Condor as Lara Jean Covey, Noah Centineo as Peter Kavinsky, Janel Parrish as Margot, Anna Cathcart as Kitty, Emilija Baranac as Gen, Israel Broussard as Josh, Madeleine Arthur as Chris, and John Corbett as Lara Jean’s father.

She wrote the letters for no one to read. Then all of them were mailed.

A note before you read. This page mentions a private video of two teenagers posted online without their consent. Nothing is described. If someone has shared, or threatened to share, private images of you, it isn’t your fault, and help exists; every current number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is a refusal, and a gentle one: the series’ first teen romance of the smartphone era, and one of its few with an Asian-American girl at the center. Jenny Han, who wrote the novel, said casting an Asian-American actress as Lara Jean was essential. The film was also criticized for casting white actors as four of the five boys Lara Jean wrote to, and Han said she shared that frustration.

It is the first film in the series to show a pattern the Decoder files under the digital cards: using a public platform to make someone jealous and unsure of themselves. And it shows, gently, a healthier thing almost none of the 80s films did: two teenagers who agree, out loud, on the rules.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. Nobody here is a villain, not even Gen. This page reads what happens to Lara Jean’s private feelings once they stop being private.

The Story

Lara Jean Covey, a shy high school junior, writes letters to the boys she has had strong feelings for, and locks them away in her closet. One is to Josh, her childhood friend, who dated her older sister, Margot, until Margot broke up with him before leaving for college. Lara Jean’s feelings for Josh are coming back, but she decides not to act on them.

One night her little sister, Kitty, finds the letters. On Monday, Peter Kavinsky, a middle-school crush, tells Lara Jean he got hers. She faints. When she sees Josh coming with his letter, she panics and kisses Peter. All the letters, she realizes, have been mailed.

Peter has a proposal: a fake relationship. It will make his ex-girlfriend, Gen, jealous, and convince Josh that Lara Jean is over him. They agree, and write down the dos and don’ts. For months the school, their friends and their families believe it.

They start to fall for each other for real. Gen tells Peter she’s jealous. On a school ski trip, Peter admits his feelings, and he and Lara Jean kiss in a hot tub. At the end of the trip, Gen tells Lara Jean that Peter spent the night in her room, and taunts her with Peter’s favorite scrunchie, which she took from him. Lara Jean breaks up with Peter.

At home, Margot is back from college. Peter arrives to explain that nothing happened with Gen; Josh arrives to confront him. Margot overhears and learns about Lara Jean’s old feelings for Josh. Then Lara Jean sees that a video of her and Peter in the hot tub has been posted on Instagram.

Margot comforts her. Kitty admits she mailed the letters, and Margot helps Lara Jean see that part of her may have wanted them sent. The sisters forgive each other, and get Instagram to take the video down.

After the holidays, the school has seen the video anyway. Lara Jean suspects Gen posted it. Confronted, Gen admits she tried to sabotage them: she felt betrayed that Lara Jean had kissed Peter in a game of spin the bottle four years earlier.

Lara Jean talks with her father and her best friend, Chris, and makes peace with Josh. Kitty shows her the notes Peter wrote her during their “fake” relationship. Lara Jean goes to Peter. He tells her he’s in love with her.

What It Gets Right

A lot. It treats a teenage girl’s inner life, her letters, her daydreams, her fear, as something worth a whole film. It puts sisters at the center: they fight, and forgive, and take care of each other. It gives Lara Jean a father who listens. And it shows a boy and a girl writing down what they will and won’t do with each other, which most of the earlier films in this series would have found unthinkable.

What It Teaches

1. Private, made public

The letters were never meant to be sent. Kitty sends them anyway, out of love, and Lara Jean’s most private feelings land in five boys’ hands. Later, something much worse: a private moment, recorded and posted for the whole school.

The letters and the video are different things. One sister made a mistake and owned it. The video was posted to hurt. But both teach the same thing about how it feels: the shame lands on the person whose privacy was taken, not on the person who took it. That’s backwards. If something private of yours was shared without your consent, the shame was never yours.

2. Used to make someone jealous

The fake relationship starts as a plan to make Gen jealous. Peter means no harm, and he and Lara Jean agree to it. But the film is honest that using one person to stir another’s feelings has a cost: both Lara Jean and Gen end up hurt and unsure.

The Decoder’s Card 14, Comparison Triangulation, is “Making you compete with phantoms.” When the person you’re with seems always to be measuring you against someone else, or showing you off to someone else, it’s hard to know where you stand. Lara Jean doesn’t, for most of the film.

3. The scrunchie, and the video

Gen tells Lara Jean that Peter spent the night in her room. She dangles his scrunchie. Then the hot-tub video goes up, and the whole school sees it. When Lara Jean confronts her, Gen admits she was trying to sabotage them.

The Decoder’s Card D-4, Social Media Triangulation, is “Using public platforms to create jealousy and insecurity.” This is the phone-era version of a very old move. It used to take a rumor; now it takes a post. The aim is the same: to make you doubt what you have, and to make sure everyone watches you doubt it.

4. The rules, written down

The best thing in the film may be the least romantic. Before the fake relationship starts, Lara Jean and Peter sit down and agree, in writing, what they will and won’t do. It’s played as a joke. It’s also what consent looks like: saying what you want, out loud, before it happens, and being able to change your mind.

Many women who grew up on the 80s films in this series never saw a boy and a girl negotiate anything. Here it’s the start of the love story.

5. Sisters

Margot comforts her. Kitty owns what she did. And together, the sisters get the video taken down. Lara Jean doesn’t handle the worst thing that happens to her alone.

When something private is used against you, the first thing to do is tell someone who’s on your side. Then, together, you can do something about it: report it, ask for it to come down, get help. Lara Jean had sisters. Many of us have to find ours.

Private, Made Public, Side by Side

	Sixteen Candles (1984)	To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)	Jexi (2019)
What was taken	Her underwear, shown for a dollar	A private video, posted online	His private photos, sent to his whole company
How the film treats it	As a joke	As a harm, and it’s taken down	As a joke, at his expense
The pattern	Her body as a prize	Jealousy, made public	Help no one asked for

Three films, thirty-five years apart. Only one treats the harm as a harm.

If You Grew Up on This

Many readers saw this with a daughter, or were the daughter. Nothing on this page asks you to stop loving Lara Jean and Peter. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Has something private of yours been made public? Where did the shame land?
Have you been used to make someone else jealous, or been the one compared?
Has someone used a post, a photo or a story online to make you doubt what you had?
Have you ever said, out loud, what you want and don’t want, before it happened?
Who helped you when something private was used against you? Who could you help?

Lara Jean wrote the letters for no one. Her sisters helped her face everyone.

You’re the audience now. Your private life is yours.