The Enduring Appeal of the ‘Fake Relationship’ Rom-Com
The new Netflix romantic comedy To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, an adaptation of the Jenny Han novel, revels in the in-between. Protagonist Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) finds herself perpetually stuck in the middle: She’s the biracial daughter of an American father (John Corbett) and a deceased Korean mother; she’s the second of three sisters. She’s not quite awkward enough to be a social outcast at school, but she’s certainly not as cool as her former best friend, Gen (short for Genevieve), whose heartthrob boyfriend Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) is their high school’s “king of the cafeteria.”
But for much of the film’s 99-minute run, the most nebulous territory Lara Jean occupies is the space between “real” and “fake” girlfriend. The central tension of begins when, unbeknownst to Lara Jean,
