Heartstopper Forever

I watched "Heartstopper Forever" and I actually don't think it's that bad. I think some of you are just allergic to sincerity and forgot how it feels to be a teenager.

 

 

I went into this film expecting to struggle to get through it. Based on what people have said on tiktok (I know, never listen to people on tiktok) I thought this would be the most unbearably "cringe" and childish piece of TV of the year, but... it wasn't? Let's start off by saying I feel extremely nostalgic about the whole Heartstopper series, I started reading it on tumblr when I was around thirteen and deeply closeted, and though I didn't know I was a man yet, Charlie was a character I saw myself in, both in his queerness and mental health struggles. I read all of Alice Oseman's books, with "Solitaire," the story of Charlie's sister Tori, being my favourite and the closest to my heart.

The whole film felt like it represented being a teenager in a pretty accurate way. All your friends are going away, the uncertainty of your own and collective future. Every little issue feels like it's treated too seriously, maybe, but that is what being sixteen or eighteen feels like. Nick and Charlie's relationship feels just like that - like two teenagers being deeply in love, while not always saying or doing the right thing and while battling their own personal lives and mental health struggles. Their conversations feel natural, the sex scenes realistic, and the breakup over one misunderstanding feels like something that I've witnessed many times back in school.

The story, at its core, is simple. Everything is shown very directly, the film does kind of hold your hand, stating many of its messages clearly, instead of just showing them. And as much as it feels a bit silly, or tacky, it is a film for teenagers. I'm not trying to suggest younger audiences are stupid and need everything to be straight forward. But in times when a lot of queer storylines and messages are only hinted at in fear of losing out on audience and money, maybe it's actually okay to have this fifteen second segment of people at a pride parade repeating "What do we want? Trans rights!" more times than really necessary. It's nice to have a feel good story!

One storyline that felt more personal to me than Nick and Charlie's, was the side plot about Charlie's older sister, Tori. In her book, she's a sixteen year old loner that with a blog, so you can see why I liked her as a lonely, young teen with a blog who was questioning their sexuality. Here, she only appears in a couple of scenes, but one of them is her conversation with Charlie, where she opens up about her asexuality and relationship with Michael. This just hit really close as someone in a queer-platonic relationship that people love to question.

Tori responding after Charlie asked "Why are you even together?"

This is completely irrelevant to everything else, but my boyfriend and I ran towards each other and hugged right outside the turnstiles at Leeds train station the exact same way Nick and Charlie do in this film, and they filmed it a week after we were there (I literally saw a tweet of someone who spotted the filming of Heartstopper last summer and showed it to my boyfriend saying NO WAY).

All in all, the show is heartwarming, it's sweet, it feels nostalgic. I don't know if I'd recommend it if you're not invested in the story already, but I definitely don't think it's as bad as some people paint it.